21-letter words containing h, e, r, d, t
- 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
- 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)
- forward exchange rate — the exchange rate of a currency to be delivered at a later date
- frankfort on the oder — a city in NE Germany, on the Oder River.
- french fried potatoes — a more formal name for chips
- friends with benefits — friends who have a casual sexual relationship with no expectation of commitment
- from dan to beersheba — from one end of Israel to the other: Judg. 20:1
- 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.
- gamma hydroxybutyrate — a substance that occurs naturally in the brain, used medically as a sedative but also as a recreational drug and alleged aphrodisiac: known as 'liquid ecstasy' when mixed with alcohol
- gentleman of the road — a highwayman.
- 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
- go down the wrong way — (of food) to pass into the windpipe instead of the gullet
- goldbach's conjecture — the conjecture that every even number greater than two is the sum of two prime numbers
- got what one deserved — If you say that someone got what they deserved, you mean that they deserved the bad thing that happened to them, and you have no sympathy for them.
- greek orthodox church — the branch of the Orthodox Church constituting the national church of Greece.
- 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 heard sth before — If you say that you have heard something before, you mean that you are not interested in it, or do not believe it, or are not surprised about it, because you already know about it or have experienced it.
- 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.
- 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.
- horns and halo effect — a tendency to allow one's judgement of another person, esp in a job interview, to be unduly influenced by an unfavourable (horns) or favourable (halo) first impression based on appearances
- 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.
- japanese stranglehold — a wrestling hold in which an opponent's wrists are pulled to cross his or her arms in front of his or her own neck and exert pressure on the windpipe
- jordan-holder theorem — the theorem that for any two composition series of a group, an isomorphism exists between the corresponding quotient groups of each series, taken in some specified order.
- lactate dehydrogenase — an enzyme that catalyzes the interconversion of pyruvate and lactate, an important step in carbohydrate metabolism: elevated serum levels indicate injury to kidney, skeletal muscle, or heart muscle. Abbreviation: LDH.
- lady macbeth strategy — a strategy in a takeover battle in which a third party makes a bid acceptable to the target company, appearing to act as a white knight but subsequently joining forces with the original (unwelcome) bidder
- 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
- lap and shoulder belt — a car seat belt
- 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
- maryland yellowthroat — (in former systems of nomenclature) the common yellowthroat, Geothlypis trichas, especially the eastern U.S. subspecies.
- 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
- monochloroacetic acid — chloroacetic acid.
- mother-of-pearl cloud — nacreous cloud.