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17-letter words containing h, e, r, n

  • ashton-under-lyne — a town in NW England, in Tameside unitary authority, Greater Manchester. Pop: 43 236 (2001)
  • assistant teacher — a person who assists a teacher in their work or who is not yet fully qualified as a teacher
  • at their own game — If you beat someone at their own game, you use the same methods that they have used, but more successfully, so that you gain an advantage over them.
  • attachment theory — a set of concepts that explain the emergence of an emotional bond between an infant and primary caregiver and the way in which this bond affects the child’s behavioral and emotional development into adulthood. See also attachment (def 3a).
  • attraction sphere — centrosphere (sense 1)
  • audience research — research into the make-up and habits of the audience of a particular television or radio programme or network
  • australopithecine — any of various extinct apelike primates of the genus Australopithecus and related genera, remains of which have been discovered in southern and E Africa. Some species are estimated to be over 4.5 million years old
  • authoritativeness — having due authority; having the sanction or weight of authority: an authoritative opinion.
  • bachelor's button — any of several plants of a genus (Centaurea) of the composite family, that have scaly, vase-shaped bracts below the white, pink, or blue flowers; esp., the cornflower and knapweed
  • bachelor's-button — any of various plants with round flower heads, especially the cornflower.
  • back on the rails — If something is back on the rails, it is beginning to be successful again after a period when it almost failed.
  • bacteriorhodopsin — a purple protein containing retinal and found in the plasma membrane of certain bacteria (genus Halobacterium): it directly supplies electrochemical energy from sunlight
  • bald-faced hornet — any large, stinging paper wasp of the family Vespidae, as Vespa crabro (giant hornet) introduced into the U.S. from Europe, or Vespula maculata (bald-faced hornet or white-faced hornet) of North America.
  • barkhausen effect — the phenomenon of short, sudden changes in the magnetism of a ferromagnetic substance occurring when the intensity of the magnetizing field is continuously altered.
  • baseboard heating — a heating system by pipes, through which steam or hot water circulates, near the base of the walls of rooms
  • be on tenterhooks — If you are on tenterhooks, you are very nervous and excited because you are wondering what is going to happen in a particular situation.
  • be on the rebound — If you say that someone is on the rebound, you mean that they have just ended a relationship with a girlfriend or boyfriend. This often makes them do things they would not normally do.
  • bell-hanger's bit — a bit for drilling small holes through studs or the like.
  • belted kingfisher — a grayish-blue, North American kingfisher, Ceryle alcyon, having a white breast marked with a grayish-blue band.
  • 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.
  • board-and-shingle — a small dwelling with wooden walls and a shingle roof
  • 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
  • brain haemorrhage — bleeding into the brain
  • 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
  • breathe life into — revive, rejuvenate
  • brezhnev doctrine — the doctrine expounded by Leonid Brezhnev in November 1968 affirming the right of the Soviet Union to intervene in the affairs of Communist countries to strengthen Communism.
  • 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-cameroons — German Kamerun. a region in W Africa: a German protectorate 1884–1919; divided in 1919 into British and French mandates.
  • broad-winged hawk — an American hawk, Buteo platypterus, dark brown above and white barred with rufous below.
  • broken white line — a regular, discontinuous white line on a roadway, indicating that overtaking is permitted
  • buncher resonator — See under Klystron.
  • bursting strength — the capacity of a thing or substance to resist change when under pressure.
  • 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.
  • cape horn current — the part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing E at Cape Horn.
  • carbon disulphide — a colourless slightly soluble volatile flammable poisonous liquid commonly having a disagreeable odour due to the presence of impurities: used as an organic solvent and in the manufacture of rayon and carbon tetrachloride. Formula: CS2
  • carbon microphone — a microphone in which a diaphragm, vibrated by sound waves, applies a varying pressure to a container packed with carbon granules, altering the resistance of the carbon. A current flowing through the carbon is thus modulated at the frequency of the sound waves
  • carbonyl chloride — phosgene
  • carboxyhemoglobin — a compound formed in the blood when carbon monoxide occupies the positions on the hemoglobin molecule normally taken by oxygen, resulting in cellular oxygen starvation
  • cardiogenic shock — a type of shock caused by decreased cardiac output despite adequate blood volume, owing to a disease of the heart itself, as myocardial infarction, or any other factor that interferes with the filling or emptying of the heart.
  • cartoon character — one of the people or animals in an animated film
  • 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
  • catcher resonator — See under Klystron.
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