16-letter words containing h, e, d, r
- down to the wire — a slender, stringlike piece or filament of relatively rigid or flexible metal, usually circular in section, manufactured in a great variety of diameters and metals depending on its application.
- drainage channel — a channel along which drained water flows away
- draught excluder — a device (such as a strip of wood, or a long cylindrical cushion) placed at the bottom of a door to keep out draughts
- draw the longbow — to exaggerate in telling something
- dredging machine — dredge1 (def 1).
- drogue parachute — Also called drogue. a small parachute that deploys first in order to pull a larger parachute from its pack.
- drop a bombshell — If someone drops a bombshell, they give you a sudden piece of bad or unexpected news.
- drumhead cabbage — acommon type of cabbage with tightly packed leaves and a rounded form with a slightly flattened top
- drumhead service — a religious service attended by members of a military unit while in the field
- dunderheadedness — Stupidity.
- earthly paradise — Bible: Garden of Eden
- eastern orthodox — of or relating to the Orthodox Church.
- eastern whipbird — an Australian whipbird, Psophodes olivaceus
- echocardiographs — Plural form of echocardiograph.
- echocardiography — an instrument employing reflected ultrasonic waves to examine the structures and functioning of the heart.
- edinburgh prolog — Prolog dialect which eventually developed into the standard, as opposed to Marseille Prolog. (The difference is largely syntax.) Clocksin & Mellish describe Edinburgh Prolog. Version: C-Prolog.
- edward the elder — died 924 ad, king of England (899–924), son of Alfred the Great
- electrohydraulic — Relating to electrohydraulics.
- enriched uranium — uranium in which the proportion of the fissile isotope U-235 has been increased to make it more fissile
- ethernet address — (networking) (Or "MAC address") The physical address identifying an individual Ethernet controller board. An Ethernet addess is a 48-bit number aabbccddeeff where a-f are hexadecimal digits. The first 24 bits, aabbcc, identify the manufacturer of the controller. The Ethernet address is hard-wired on some controllers, stored in a ROM on some, and others allow it to be changed from software. It is usually written as six hexadecimal numbers, e.g. 08:00:20:03:72:DC. See also ARP, Internet address.
- ethinylestradiol — A derivative of 17\u03b2-estradiol, the major endogenous estrogen in humans, used in oral contraceptives.
- exhumation order — a legal instruction to exhume a body
- faintheartedness — The quality or state of being fainthearted.
- false beechdrops — either of two parasitic or saprophytic plants of the genus Monotropa, especially the tawny or reddish M. hypopithys (false beechdrops) of eastern North America.
- false dragonhead — a North American plant, Physostegia virginiana, of the mint family, having a spike of tubular, two-lipped, pink or white flowers.
- fashion designer — creator of clothing designs
- federated church — a church whose membership includes two or more congregations of different denominational affiliation.
- federation wheat — an early-maturing drought-resistant variety of wheat developed by William Farrar in 1902
- feel the draught — to be short of money
- femme de chambre — a chambermaid
- fielder's choice — a fielder's attempt to put out a base runner rather than the batter when a play at first base would put out the batter.
- finished product — the product that emerges at the end of a manufacturing process
- fisherman's bend — a knot made by taking a round turn on the object to which the rope is to be fastened, passing the end of the rope around the standing part and under the round turn, and securing the end.
- flamborough head — a chalk promontory in NE England, on the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire
- flatheaded borer — the larva of a metallic wood-boring beetle, having an expanded and flattened anterior end.
- floridean starch — the storage polysaccharide of red algae.
- follow the crowd — copy what others are doing
- foot in the door — If you say that something helps someone to get their foot in the door or their toe in the door, you mean that it gives them an opportunity to start doing something new, usually in an area that is difficult to succeed in.
- for the duration — If you say that something will happen for the duration, you mean that it will happen for as long as a particular situation continues.
- forbid the banns — to raise an objection to a marriage announced in this way
- forbush decrease — the sudden decrease in the intensity of cosmic rays after an increase in solar activity.
- force one's hand — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
- forefathers' day — the anniversary of the day (December 21, 1620, in Old Style December 11) on which the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Mass. Owing to an error in changing the date from the Old Style to the New, it is generally observed on December 22.
- forked lightning — Forked lightning is lightning that divides into two or more parts near the ground.
- forward exchange — a foreign bill purchased at a stipulated price and payable at a future date.
- founders' shares — shares awarded to the founders of a company and often granting special privileges
- four-wheel drive — a drive system in which engine power is transmitted to all four wheels for improved traction.
- fourth amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, prohibiting unlawful search and seizure of personal property.
- fourth dimension — Physics, Mathematics. a dimension in addition to length, width, and depth, used so as to be able to employ geometrical language in discussing phenomena that depend on four variables: Time is considered a fourth dimension for locating points in space-time.
- freeboard length — the length of a vessel, measured on the summer load line from the fore side of the stem to some part of the stern, usually the after side of the rudderpost.