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22-letter words containing h, e, r, i

  • oak processionary moth — a moth, (Thaumetopoea processionea), of the family Thaumetopoeidae, the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
  • occupational therapist — professional who assists with rehabilitation
  • oceanic whitetip shark — whitetip shark (def 2).
  • of the first magnitude — of the greatest importance
  • on a shoestring budget — with very little money to spend
  • one's foot in the door — (in vertebrates) the terminal part of the leg, below the ankle joint, on which the body stands and moves.
  • other side of the coin — a piece of metal stamped and issued by the authority of a government for use as money.
  • ousterhout's dichotomy — (language)   John Ousterhout's division of high-level languages into "system programming languages" and "scripting languages". This distinction underlies the design of his language Tcl. System programming languages (or "applications languages") are strongly typed, allow arbitrarily complex data structures, and programs in them are compiled, and are meant to operate largely independently of other programs. Prototypical system programming languages are C and Modula-2. By contrast, scripting languages (or "glue languages") are weakly typed or untyped, have little or no provision for complex data structures, and programs in them ("scripts") are interpreted. Scripts need to interact either with other programs (often as glue) or with a set of functions provided by the interpreter, as with the file system functions provided in a UNIX shell and with Tcl's GUI functions. Prototypical scripting languages are AppleScript, C Shell, MS-DOS batch files and Tcl. Many believe that this is a highly arbitrary dichotomy, and refer to it as "Ousterhout's fallacy" or "Ousterhout's false dichotomy". While strong-versus-weak typing, data structure complexity, and independent versus stand-alone might be said to be unrelated features, the usual critique of Ousterhout's dichotomy is of its distinction of compilation versus interpretation, since neither semantics nor syntax depend significantly on whether code is compiled into machine-language, interpreted, tokenized, or byte-compiled at the start of each run, or any mixture of these. Many languages fall between being interpreted or compiled (e.g. Lisp, Forth, UCSD Pascal, Perl, and Java). This makes compilation versus interpretation a dubious parameter in a taxonomy of programming languages.
  • padparadschah sapphire — a rare, yellowish-orange sapphire found in Sri Lanka.
  • pale horse, pale rider — a trilogy of short novels (1939) by Katherine Anne Porter.
  • paranoid schizophrenia — severe psychiatric disorder
  • partnerships for peace — a subsidiary organization of NATO, comprising former Warsaw Pact countries that wish to be allied with NATO but have not been granted full NATO membership: established in 1994
  • peanut-butter sandwich — a sandwich with a filling of peanut-butter
  • personal relationships — relationships between people, especially those between friends, lovers and family members
  • phase alternating line — (television)   (PAL) The video signal format used in the UK [where else?]. PAL uses Amplitude Modulation for the video information, and Frequency Modulation for the audio information. The phase of the colour subcarrier is reversed on alternate lines which (together with the use of a delay line) allows the receiver to cancel any phase errors introduced in the path between the studio and the end-user's receiver. Such phase errors are quite common and would cause the displayed colours to shift in hue. The US equivalent, NTSC, does not have this feature and thus requires a user control to correct for transmission phase errors, hence the mis-expansion "Never Twice the Same Colour".
  • phosphorus trichloride — a clear, colorless, fuming liquid, PCl 3 , used chiefly in organic synthesis as a chlorinating agent.
  • physiographic province — a geographic region in which climate and geology have given rise to an array of landforms different from those of surrounding regions.
  • play one's cards right — a usually rectangular piece of stiff paper, thin pasteboard, or plastic for various uses, as to write information on or printed as a means of identifying the holder: a 3″ × 5″ file card; a membership card.
  • polymyalgia rheumatica — a chronic inflammatory disease, common among older persons, characterized by recurrent episodes of muscle pain and stiffness, sometimes leading to cardiovascular complications or blindness.
  • prawn-sandwich brigade — sports fans who are perceived to lack passion and commitment, and who it is supposed attend matches in order to eat food and buy merchandise rather than cheer on their team
  • preestablished harmony — (in the philosophy of Leibnitz) synchronous operation of all monads, since their simultaneous creation, in accordance with the preexisting plan of God.
  • process cinematography — cinematography in which the main or foreground action or scene is superimposed on or combined with simulated or separately filmed background action or scenery to produce special visual effects.
  • psychological thriller — book, movie: suspense story
  • public housing project — a group of homes for poorer families which is funded and controlled by the local government
  • public service vehicle — a bus or coach
  • put the frighteners on — to intimidate
  • quantitative character — a character or trait that is transmitted by quantitative inheritance.
  • quarter inch cartridge — (storage)   /kwik/ (QIC) a type of magnetic tape and tape drive. Development standards for QIC make it possible for tapes written on one QIC drive to be read on another. QIC drives are made to work with different lengths of tape. The model number of the drive consists of QIC followed by a number which indicates the drives tape capacity in megabytes (MB).
  • reactive schizophrenia — a type of schizophrenia of rapid onset and brief duration that occurs in response to environmental factors.
  • read between the lines — a mark or stroke long in proportion to its breadth, made with a pen, pencil, tool, etc., on a surface: a line down the middle of the page.
  • recreational therapist — someone who specializes in therapy by means of recreational activities engaged in by the patient
  • registered shareholder — someone who holds or owns a stock registered to their name
  • rejoice in the name of — If you say that a person or thing rejoices in the name of something, you mean that they have a silly or amusing name.
  • relationship marketing — a marketing strategy in which a company seeks to build long-term relationships with its customers by providing consistent satisfaction
  • research establishment — an establishment or institution where research or investigation into a subject, topic, etc, can be conducted
  • research systems, inc. — (RSI) Distributors of Interactive Data Language (IDL).
  • resistance thermometer — an instrument for measuring the temperature of a metal, utilizing the principle that the electrical resistance of the metal varies with the temperature.
  • retroactive inhibition — the tendency for the retention of learned material or skills to be impaired by subsequent learning, esp by learning of a similar kind
  • rheumatoid spondylitis — ankylosing spondylitis.
  • royal national theatre — a theatre complex in London, on the S bank of the Thames (opened 1976). The prefix Royal was added in 1988. It houses the Royal National Theatre Company
  • rubber-chicken circuit — a monotonous round of dinners, often featuring chicken, that a lecturer or political candidate is obliged to attend.
  • saint george's channel — a channel between Wales and Ireland, connecting the Irish Sea and the Atlantic. 100 miles (160 km) long; 50–90 miles (81–145 km) wide.
  • salt-marsh caterpillar — the fuzzy larva of a moth, Estigmene acrea, of North America, destructive to various crops.
  • sapir-whorf hypothesis — a theory developed by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf that states that the structure of a language determines or greatly influences the modes of thought and behavior characteristic of the culture in which it is spoken.
  • saturday night special — a cheap, small-caliber handgun that is easily obtainable and concealable.
  • saturday-night special — a cheap, small-caliber handgun that is easily obtainable and concealable.
  • save the children fund — a development agency which raises money for deprived children around the world
  • sb can whistle for sth — If you say that someone can whistle for a particular thing, you mean that you are not willing or able to give it to them.
  • schachter's hypothesis — (web)   The observation that "Given two unrelated technical terms, an Internet search engine will retrieve only résumés". This was first formulated by Joshua Eli Schachter in about 1998, while poring over the uniformly irrelevant pages that resulted from a search he'd run on "+Perl +MAPI" in Altavista.
  • school medical officer — a doctor who is based in a school and is responsible for the health of schoolchildren
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