17-letter words containing h, e, a, t
- beat a dead horse — to argue an issue that is already settled
- beat the drum for — to attempt to arouse interest in
- beat to the punch — to be quicker than (another) in doing something, as in striking a blow
- behaviour therapy — any of various means of treating psychological disorders, such as desensitization, aversion therapy, and instrumental conditioning, that depend on the patient systematically learning new modes of behaviour
- bell-hanger's bit — a bit for drilling small holes through studs or the like.
- bent out of shape — very angry, upset, or agitated
- best first search — (algorithm) A graph search algorithm which optimises breadth first search by ordering all current paths according to some heuristic. The heuristic attempts to predict how close the end of a path is to a solution. Paths which are judged to be closer to a solution are extended first. See also beam search, hill climbing.
- biological father — the man whose semen fertilized the ovum from which a child was born
- biological mother — the mother who gave birth to a child
- biopharmaceutical — of or relating to drugs produced using biotechnology
- birth certificate — Your birth certificate is an official document which gives details of your birth, such as the date and place of your birth, and the names of your parents.
- blood and thunder — A blood and thunder performer or performance is very loud and emotional.
- blood-and-thunder — sensationalism, violence, or exaggerated melodrama: a movie full of blood and thunder.
- boat-billed heron — a nocturnal, tropical American wading bird (Cochlearius cochlearius) with a large, broad bill: it is the only member of a family (Cochleariidae) of wading birds
- 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
- bottlebrush grass — a North American grass, Hystrix patula, having loose flower spikes with long awns.
- 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.
- break one's heart — to grieve or cause to grieve very deeply, esp through love
- break the back of — to complete the greatest or hardest part of (a task)
- 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 israelite — a member of a religious movement claiming that the British people are descended from the lost tribes of Israel
- british-cameroons — German Kamerun. a region in W Africa: a German protectorate 1884–1919; divided in 1919 into British and French mandates.
- broadview heights — a town in N Ohio.
- buncher resonator — See under Klystron.
- bury the tomahawk — to stop fighting; make peace
- 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.
- caa the feet frae — to send (a person) sprawling
- cache consistency — cache coherency
- calcium phosphate — the insoluble nonacid calcium salt of orthophosphoric acid (phosphoric(V) acid): it occurs in bones and is the main constituent of bone ash. Formula: Ca3(PO4)2
- called to the bar — admitted to the practice of law as a barrister
- 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
- case-study method — Also called case-study method [keys-stuhd-ee] /ˈkeɪsˈstʌd i/ (Show IPA). the teaching or elucidation of a subject or issue through analysis and discussion of actual cases, as in business education.
- 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
- cat scratch fever — a disorder characterized by fever and swelling of the lymph glands, caused by a viral infection resulting from the scratch or bite of a cat.
- cat-scratch fever — a disease of humans caused by an organism, Bartonella henselae, usually resulting from a scratch by a cat and characterized by lymph node enlargement
- catapult-launched — (of aircraft) launched into the air by a device installed in warships
- 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.