17-letter words containing h, a, n, s
- on one's deathbed — about to die
- on the half shell — served raw, with seasonings, on a half shell
- on the heavy side — tending to be too heavy
- on the pig's back — successful; established
- one of these days — at some future time
- opisthobranchiate — (zoology) Of or pertaining to the Opisthobranchiata.
- organic chemistry — the branch of chemistry, originally limited to substances found only in living organisms, dealing with the compounds of carbon.
- organic psychosis — a severe mental illness produced by damage to the brain, as a result of poisoning, alcoholism, disease, etc
- organophosphorous — Misspelling of organophosphorus.
- out of one's head — the upper part of the body in humans, joined to the trunk by the neck, containing the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
- overreach oneself — to fail because of trying to do more than one can
- pacific northwest — the region of North America lying north of the Columbia River and west of the Rockies
- parmesan (cheese) — a very hard, dry cheese orig. of Italy, made from skimmed cow's milk and usually grated for sprinkling on pasta, soups, etc.
- pashmina politics — the adoption of political policies immediately after they have gone out of fashion
- pastoral symphony — the Symphony No. 6 in F major (1807–08) by Ludwig van Beethoven.
- peaches and cream — If you say that a woman or a girl has a peaches and cream complexion, you mean that she has very clear, smooth, pale skin.
- penalty shoot-out — In football, a penalty shoot-out is a way of deciding the result of a game that has ended in a draw. Players from each team try to score a goal in turn until one player fails to score and their team loses the game.
- peripheral vision — all that is visible to the eye outside the central area of focus; side vision.
- perpetual spinach — a variety of spinach that keeps producing edible leaves
- personality clash — friction between two people who have different personalities or points of view
- perth and kinross — a council area of N central Scotland, corresponding mainly to the historical counties of Perthshire and Kinross-shire: part of Tayside Region from 1975 until 1996: chiefly mountainous, with agriculture, tourism, and forestry. Administrative centre: Perth. Pop: 135 990 (2003 est). Area: 5321 sq km (2019 sq miles)
- petrarchan sonnet — a sonnet form popularized by Petrarch, consisting of an octave with the rhyme scheme abbaabba and of a sestet with one of several rhyme schemes, as cdecde or cdcdcd.
- phase of the moon — Used humorously as a random parameter on which something is said to depend. Sometimes implies unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to determine. "This feature depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon." See also heisenbug. True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend on the phase of the moon. There was a little subroutine that had traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an approximation to the moon's true phase. GLS incorporated this routine into a Lisp program that, when it wrote out a file, would print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long. Very occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read back in the program would barf. The length of the first line depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug literally depended on the phase of the moon! The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but the typesetter "corrected" it. This has since been described as the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.
- phenyl isocyanate — a liquid reagent, C 7 H 5 NO, having an unpleasant, irritating odor: used chiefly for identifying alcohols and amines.
- photo-respiration — the oxidation of carbohydrates in many higher plants in which they get oxygen from light and then release carbon dioxide, somewhat different from photosynthesis.
- photodissociation — the dissociation or breakdown of a chemical compound by radiant energy.
- physical handicap — loss of or failure to develop a specific bodily function or functions, whether of movement, sensation, coordination, or speech, but excluding mental impairments or disabilities
- physical medicine — the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury by means of physical agents, as manipulation, massage, exercise, heat, or water.
- physical pendulum — any apparatus consisting of a body of possibly irregular shape allowed to rotate freely about a horizontal axis on which it is pivoted (distinguished from simple pendulum).
- physical training — fitness coaching
- pincushion cactus — any of various low-growing, spiny cacti of the genus Mammillaria.
- plains of abraham — a high plain adjoining the city of Quebec, Canada: battlefield where the English under Wolfe defeated the French under Montcalm in 1759.
- play with oneself — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- ploughman's lunch — a light lunch consisting of bread and cheese, and sometimes pickled onions.
- plug and feathers — an apparatus for splitting stone, consisting of two tapered bars (feathers) inserted into a hole drilled into the stone, between which a narrow wedge (plug) is hammered to spread them.
- point of purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
- point-of-purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
- polioencephalitis — a disease characterized by inflammation of the gray matter of the brain.
- preference shares — a share of preferred stock.
- preferential shop — a shop in which union members are preferred, usually by agreement of an employer with a union.
- private ownership — the fact of being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body
- prusso-danish war — a war of 1864 between Prussia and Denmark by which Denmark lost Schleswig-Holstein.
- pseudo-humanistic — a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
- psychodiagnostics — the study and evaluation of character or personality in terms of behavioral and anatomical traits, as gesture, posture and physiognomy.
- psychoeducational — designating or of psychological methods, as intelligence tests, used in evaluating learning ability
- put one's hand to — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
- pythagorean scale — the major scale as derived acoustically by Pythagoras from the perfect fifth.
- quantum chemistry — the application of quantum mechanics to the study of chemical phenomena.
- quantum mechanics — a theory of the mechanics of atoms, molecules, and other physical systems that are subject to the uncertainty principle. Abbreviation: QM.
- racial harassment — persecution on the basis of race