17-letter words containing h, a, n, t
- bohemian brethren — a Protestant Christian sect formed in the 15th century from various Hussite groups, which rejected oaths and military service and advocated a pure and disciplined spiritual life. It was reorganized in 1722 as the Moravian Church
- boothia peninsula — a peninsula of N Canada: the northernmost part of the mainland of North America, lying west of the Gulf of Boothia, an arm of the Arctic Ocean
- branch delay slot — delayed control-transfer
- branch prediction — (processor, algorithm) A technique used in some processors with instruction prefetch to guess whether a conditional branch will be taken or not and prefetch code from the appropriate location. When a branch instruction is executed, its address and that of the next instruction executed (the chosen destination of the branch) are stored in the Branch Target Buffer. This information is used to predict which way the instruction will branch the next time it is executed so that instruction prefetch can continue. When the prediction is correct (and it is over 90% of the time), executing a branch does not cause a pipeline break. Some later CPUs simply prefetch both paths instead of trying to predict which way the branch will go. An extension of the idea of branch prediction is speculative execution.
- brazilian rhatany — See under rhatany (def 1).
- break one's heart — to grieve or cause to grieve very deeply, esp through love
- breathe life into — revive, rejuvenate
- brightening agent — a compound applied to a textile to increase its brightness by the conversion of ultraviolet radiation to visible (blue) light, used in detergents
- brighton and hove — a city and unitary authority in S England, in East Sussex. Pop: 251 500 (2003 est). Area: 72 sq km (28 sq miles)
- bring up the rear — to be at the back in a procession, race, etc
- british cameroons — a former British trust territory of West Africa
- british columbian — of or relating to British Columbia or its inhabitants
- british-cameroons — German Kamerun. a region in W Africa: a German protectorate 1884–1919; divided in 1919 into British and French mandates.
- buncher resonator — See under Klystron.
- bushman's singlet — a sleeveless heavy black woollen singlet, used as working clothing by timber fellers
- by the same token — You use by the same token to introduce a statement that you think is true for the same reasons that were given for a previous statement.
- cache consistency — cache coherency
- can't be bothered — If you say that you can't be bothered to do something, you mean that you are not going to do it because you think it is unnecessary or because you are too lazy.
- cannot choose but — to be obliged to
- cape horn current — the part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing E at Cape Horn.
- cartoon character — one of the people or animals in an animated film
- casting the runes — (jargon) What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program because it never works for anyone else; especially used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does. Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight.
- castle in the air — a hope or desire unlikely to be realized; daydream
- catapult-launched — (of aircraft) launched into the air by a device installed in warships
- catastrophization — The act or process of catastrophizing.
- catch one's death — to contract a severe cold
- catcher resonator — See under Klystron.
- cathedral ceiling — a high ceiling formed by or suggesting an open-timbered roof.
- caudal anesthesia — anesthesia below the pelvis, induced by injecting an anesthetic into the sacral portion of the spinal canal.
- celestial horizon — the line or circle that forms the apparent boundary between earth and sky.
- chacun a son gout — each to his own taste
- change management — Change management is a style of management that aims to encourage organizations and individuals to deal effectively with the changes taking place in their work.
- change one's tune — to alter one's attitude or tone of speech
- change the sheets — If you change the sheets on a bed, you take the used sheets off the bed and put on different ones.
- chapter and verse — If you say that someone gives you chapter and verse on a particular subject, you are emphasizing that they tell you every detail about it.
- character defense — a personality trait, as a habitual tendency to idealize or rationalize, that serves some unconscious defensive purpose.
- character witness — a witness in a trial who testifies to the accused's general good character rather than providing evidence about the specific offence which has led to him or her being on trial
- characterisations — Plural form of characterisation.
- characterizations — portrayal; description: the actor's characterization of a politician.
- characterlessness — The state or condition of being characterless; lack of character.
- charente-maritime — a department of W France, in Poitou-Charentes region. Capital: La Rochelle. Pop: 576 855 (2003 est). Area: 7232 sq km (2820 sq miles)
- charles townshend — Charles, 1725–67, English politician, chancellor of the exchequer for whom the Townshend Acts are named.
- chart of accounts — A chart of accounts is a list of all the accounts used in a business to classify transactions or report balances.
- chartered company — a company formed for the purpose of exploration and colonization
- chemical equation — a representation of a chemical reaction using symbols of the elements to indicate the amount of substance, usually in moles, of each reactant and product
- chemical reaction — a process that involves changes in the structure and energy content of atoms, molecules, or ions but not their nuclei
- chest measurement — the circumference of the trunk, measured around the middle of the chest
- china grass cloth — grass cloth.
- chincoteague pony — a wild pony found on certain islands off the Virginia coast, apparently descended from Moorish ponies shipwrecked in this vicinity in the 16th century.
- chinese artichoke — a hairy plant, Stachys affinis, of China and Japan, having numerous small, white, edible tubers.