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18-letter words containing h, a, t, w

  • lesser whitethroat — an Old World warbler, Sylvia curruca, having a greyish-brown plumage with a white throat and underparts
  • look the other way — look in the opposite direction
  • lower klamath lake — See under Klamath Lakes.
  • lower palaeolithic — the earliest of the three sections of the Palaeolithic, beginning about 3 million years ago and ending about 70 000 bc with the emergence of Neanderthal man
  • magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
  • make heavy weather — to bring into existence by shaping or changing material, combining parts, etc.: to make a dress; to make a channel; to make a work of art.
  • make short work of — exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.
  • make sth one's own — If you make something your own, you become involved in it in such a way that people think of it as being related only to you or belonging only to you, rather than to anyone else.
  • moscow art theater — a Russian theatrical company founded in 1898 principally by Konstantin Stanislavski and famous for its naturalistic acting.
  • nailed to the wall — [like a trophy] Said of a bug finally eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort.
  • negative cash flow — the situation when income is less than payments
  • neighborhood watch — a neighborhood surveillance program or group in which residents keep watch over one another's houses, patrol the streets, etc., in an attempt to prevent crime.
  • north saskatchewan — a river in S central Canada, flowing E from the Rocky Mountains and joining the South Saskatchewan River to form the Saskatchewan River. 760 miles (1223 km) long.
  • not breathe a word — to take air, oxygen, etc., into the lungs and expel it; inhale and exhale; respire.
  • not that i know of — You say 'Not that I know of' when someone has asked you whether or not something is true and you think the answer is 'no' but you cannot be sure because you do not know all the facts.
  • one way or another — somehow, by some means
  • over and done with — If you say that something is over and done with, you mean that it is completely finished and you do not have to think about it any more.
  • packet switch node — (PSN) A dedicated computer whose purpose is to accept, route and forward packets in a packet-switched network.
  • paint the town red — a substance composed of solid coloring matter suspended in a liquid medium and applied as a protective or decorative coating to various surfaces, or to canvas or other materials in producing a work of art.
  • pave the way (for) — to prepare the way (for); facilitate the introduction (of)
  • peter and the wolf — a composition by Sergei Prokofiev written in 1936. It is a children's story with both music and text, spoken by a narrator accompanied by the orchestra
  • peter tschaikowsky — Peter Ilyich [il-yich] /ˈɪl yɪtʃ/ (Show IPA), Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich.
  • phantom withdrawal — the unauthorized removal of funds from a bank account using an automated teller machine
  • random walk theory — the theory that the future movement of share prices does not reflect past movements and therefore will not follow a discernible pattern
  • rhode island white — one of a dual-purpose American breed of chickens having white feathers and a rose comb.
  • right-to-work laws — a state law making it illegal to refuse employment to a person for the sole reason that he or she is not a union member.
  • salem witch trials — 17th-century witchcraft case
  • saskatchewan party — (in Canada) a Saskatchewan political party formed by former members of the provincial Progressive Conservative and Liberal Parties
  • schwarz inequality — Also called Cauchy's inequality. the theorem that the inner product of two vectors is less than or equal to the product of the magnitudes of the vectors.
  • short-tailed shrew — a grayish-black shrew, Blarina brevicauda, common in eastern North America, that has a tail less than half the length of the body.
  • slow on the uptake — slow to understand or learn
  • south saskatchewan — a river in W Canada, flowing E from S Alberta and joining the North Saskatchewan River to form the Saskatchewan River. 865 miles (1392 km) long.
  • sow dragon's teeth — to take some action that is intended to prevent strife or trouble but that actually brings it about
  • spike-tooth harrow — a harrow equipped with straight teeth on horizontal bars, usually employed to smooth and level plowed soil or seedbeds for planting or sowing.
  • stomach sweetbread — sweetbread (def 1).
  • swedish gymnastics — a system of passive and active exercising of muscles and joints
  • take the wraps off — to reveal
  • talk between ships — TBS (def 1).
  • the bird has flown — the person in question has fled or escaped
  • the cat's whiskers — a person or thing that is excellent or superior
  • the operative word — If you describe a word as the operative word, you want to draw attention to it because you think it is important or exactly true in a particular situation.
  • the powers that be — You can refer to people in authority as the powers that be, especially when you want to say that you disagree with them or do not understand what they say or do.
  • the weather bureau — the national agency responsible for collecting data about the weather and issuing forecasts
  • the welsh assembly — the elected assembly for Wales, based in Cardiff, that has certain powers devolved from the UK government
  • the worse for wear — If you say that someone is the worse for wear, you mean that they are tired, ill, or in a bad state because they have been very active, been through a difficult experience, or been drinking alcohol.
  • to find fault with — If you find fault with something or someone, you look for mistakes and complain about them.
  • to plough a furrow — If you say that someone ploughs a particular furrow or ploughs their own furrow, you mean that their activities or interests are different or isolated from those of other people.
  • to sweep the board — If someone sweeps the board in a competition or election, they win nearly everything that it is possible to win.
  • to watch your step — If someone tells you to watch your step, they are warning you to be careful about how you behave or what you say so that you do not get into trouble.
  • townsend avalanche — avalanche (def 3).
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