21-letter words containing h, e, r, d, i
- double spanish burton — a tackle having one standing block and two running blocks, giving a mechanical advantage of five, neglecting friction.
- drop the handkerchief — a children's game in which all the players but one stand in a circle facing inward, while that one player stealthily drops a handkerchief behind a player in the circle who must pursue and attempt to catch the one who dropped the handkerchief before the latter reaches the vacated place.
- easier said than done — difficult to do
- eastern daylight time — a time zone applicable to many eastern areas of the United States during the summer months, being a daylight-saving variant of Eastern Standard Time
- embarras de richesses — a superfluous abundance of options, from which one finds it difficult to select
- enhanced oil recovery — any of several techniques that make it possible to recover more oil than can be obtained by natural pressure, such as the injection of fluid or gases into an oilfield to force more oil to the surface
- enharmonic modulation — a change of key achieved by regarding a note in one key as an equivalent note in another. Thus E flat in the key of A flat could be regarded as D sharp in the key of B major
- every dog has his day — one's luck will come
- extended architecture — (storage) (XA) A CD-ROM drive specification required by Green Book CD-ROM and White Book CD-ROM formats. Drives labelled "XA ready" may require a firmware upgrade.
- flip someone the bird — give someone the finger (see phrase under finger)
- french and indian war — the war in America in which France and its Indian allies opposed England 1754–60: ended by Treaty of Paris in 1763.
- french fried potatoes — a more formal name for chips
- friends with benefits — friends who have a casual sexual relationship with no expectation of commitment
- full faith and credit — the obligation under Article IV of the U.S. Constitution for each state to recognize the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.
- get in under the wire — to accomplish something with little time to spare
- give a horse its head — to allow a horse to gallop by lengthening the reins
- give sb the runaround — If someone gives you the runaround, they deliberately do not give you all the information or help that you want, and send you to another person or place to get it.
- give someone the bird — to tell someone rudely to depart; scoff at; hiss
- ground-effect machine — ACV (def 2).
- guaranteed scheduling — (algorithm) A scheduling algorithm used in multitasking operating systems that guarantees fairness by monitoring the amount of CPU time spent by each user and allocating resources accordingly.
- have the inside track — If you say that someone has the inside track, you mean that they have an advantage, for example special knowledge about something.
- hazard warning device — an appliance fitted to a motor vehicle that operates the hazard lights
- hierarchical database — (database) A kind of database management system that links records together like a family tree such that each record type has only one owner, e.g. an order is owned by only one customer. Hierarchical structures were widely used in the first mainframe database management systems. However, due to their restrictions, they often cannot be used to relate structures that exist in the real world.
- higher-order function — (HOF) A function that can take one or more functions as argument and/or return a function as its value. E.g. map in (map f l) which returns the list of results of applying function f to each of the elements of list l. See also curried function.
- hildegard (of bingen) — Saint(1098-1179); Ger. nun, composer, & mystic: her day is Sept. 17
- hindu-arabic numerals — Arabic numeral.
- hyperbolic paraboloid — a paraboloid that can be put into a position such that its sections parallel to one coordinate plane are hyperbolas, with its sections parallel to the other two coordinate planes being parabolas.
- hyperkinetic disorder — another name for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- indicated horse-power — the horsepower of a reciprocating engine as shown by an indicator record. Abbreviation: ihp, IHP.
- joseph-marie jacquard — (person) /zhoh-zef' mah-ree' zhah-kar'/ (1752-07-07 to 1834-08-07) The inventor of the Jacquard loom.
- lambeth quadrilateral — the four essentials agreed upon at the Lambeth Conference of 1888 for a United Christian Church, namely, the Holy Scriptures, the Apostles' Creed, the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion, and the historic episcopate
- large hadron collider — a particle accelerator at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics near Geneva, containing a circular underground tunnel 27km (16.8 miles) in circumference, around which two streams of hadrons are sent in opposite directions before being brought together in a high-energy collision
- law of thermodynamics — any of three principles variously stated in equivalent forms, being the principle that the change of energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work done (first law of thermodynamics) the principle that no cyclic process is possible in which heat is absorbed from a reservoir at a single temperature and converted completely into mechanical work (second law of thermodynamics) and the principle that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations (third law of thermodynamics)
- light armored vehicle — an eight-wheeled armored reconnaissance car with a 25mm cannon, in service with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in the 1980s.
- lordship of the isles — an overlordship of the Western Isles of Scotland and adjacent lands instituted in 1266 when Magnus of Norway ceded the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, and Kintyre to the King of Scotland, and claimed by the chiefs of Clan Dougall and later by those of Clan Donald. The title was forfeited to James IV in 1493 and is now held by the eldest son of the sovereign
- lost in the underflow — (jargon) Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to "floating point underflow". The Hacker's Jargon File claimed that it is also a pun on "undertow" (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the underflow". Compare epsilon, epsilon squared; see also overflow bit.
- maidenhair spleenwort — an evergreen fern, Asplenium trichomanes, abundant in woody areas of the North Temperate Zone, having thickly clustered fronds.
- maître d'hôtel butter — melted butter mixed with parsley and lemon juice
- majority shareholding — a holding of more than half a company's shares
- mauvais quart d'heure — a brief unpleasant experience
- mechanical solidarity — social cohesiveness that is based on shared activities, beliefs, and experiences and is characteristic of simple traditional societies.
- medium dry white wine — Medium dry white wine is white wine that is not very sweet.
- member of the wedding — a novel (1946) and play (1950) by Carson McCullers.
- metopon hydrochloride — a narcotic drug, C18H21O3N·HCl, derived from morphine, but slightly more potent: used in medicine to relieve pain
- modern apprenticeship — an arrangement that allows a school leaver to gain vocational qualifications while being trained in a job
- mohammed reza pahlavi — 1919-80; shah of Iran (1941-79); deposed
- monochloroacetic acid — chloroacetic acid.
- motherwell and wishaw — a burgh in the Motherwell district, in S Scotland.
- mucopolysaccharidoses — Plural form of mucopolysaccharidosis.
- near-death experience — A near-death experience is a strange experience that some people who have nearly died say they had when they were unconscious.