20-letter words containing h, i, g, r
- ringing off the hook — If your phone is ringing off the hook, so many people are trying to telephone you that it is ringing constantly.
- rough-winged swallow — either of two New World swallows of the genus Stelgidopteryx, having outer primary feathers with small barblike hooks on the margins.
- royal british legion — an organization founded in 1921 to provide services and assistance for former members of the armed forces
- sarcastic fringehead — any fish of the genus Neoclinus, characterized by a row of fleshy processes on the head, as N. blanchardi (sarcastic fringehead) of California coastal waters.
- satellite photograph — a photograph taken by an artificial satellite from space
- scatter site housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.
- schrodinger equation — the wave equation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. Also called Schrödinger wave equation. Compare wave equation (def 2).
- semiautobiographical — pertaining to or being a fictionalized account of an author's own life.
- serve a person right — to pay a person back, esp for wrongful or foolish treatment or behaviour
- set the ball rolling — to open or initiate (an action, discussion, movement, etc)
- sex change operation — a surgical operation designed to change a person's physical sexual characteristics to those of the opposite sex
- shoulder-length hair — hair that reaches a person's shoulders
- slip through the net — If criminals slip through the net, they avoid being caught by the system or trap that was meant to catch them.
- state highway patrol — a state's road traffic police
- straight as an arrow — direct, unwavering
- straight-cut tobacco — tobacco that is cut in such a way that it will lie flat.
- synchronized skating — the art or sport of teams of up to twenty skaters holding onto each other and moving in patterns in time to music
- tetrahydrogestrinone — a synthetic anabolic steroid. Formula: C21H28O2
- the (great) pyramids — the three large pyramids at Gîza, Egypt: the largest is the Pyramid of Khufu
- the founding fathers — any of the men who were members of the U.S. Constituional Convention of 1787
- the garment industry — the manufacturing of items of clothing
- the gnomes of zurich — Swiss bankers and financiers
- the grass is greener — If you say the grass is greener somewhere else, you mean that other people's situations always seem better or more attractive than your own, but may not really be so.
- the greater antilles — a group of islands in the Caribbean, including Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico
- the hearing impaired — people whose hearing is partially defective
- the high renaissance — the period from about the 1490s to the 1520s in painting, sculpture, and architecture in Europe, esp in Italy, when the Renaissance ideals were considered to have been attained through the mastery of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael
- the legal profession — the profession of law
- the roaring twenties — a phrase used to describe the decade of the 1920s (esp in America), so called due to the social, artistic, and cultural dynamism of the period
- the thinking process — thought; the activity of thinking
- the toronto blessing — a variety of emotional reactions such as laughing, weeping, and fainting, experienced by participants in a form of charismatic Christian worship
- theory of everything — a theory intended to show that the electroweak, strong, and gravitational forces are components of a single quantized force.
- there's no mistaking — You can say there is no mistaking something when you are emphasizing that you cannot fail to recognize or understand it.
- there's nothing like — a general expression of praise
- to be a warning shot — to be a warning
- to bring up the rear — If a person or vehicle is bringing up the rear, they are the last person or vehicle in a moving line of them.
- to give sb their due — You can say 'to give him his due', or 'giving him his due' when you are admitting that there are some good things about someone, even though there are things that you do not like about them.
- to go the extra mile — If you say that someone is willing to go the extra mile, you mean that they are willing to make a special effort to do or achieve something.
- to put sth to rights — to make something consistent with justice, correctness, or orderly arrangement
- to reach new heights — to become higher than ever before
- to reserve the right — If you say that you reserve the right to do something, you mean that you will do it if you feel that it is necessary.
- to tighten your belt — If you have to tighten your belt, you have to spend less money and manage without things because you have less money than you used to have.
- track-laying vehicle — A track-laying vehicle is a vehicle whose wheels run inside a continuous chain or track.
- triple witching hour — the last hour of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on the four Fridays each year when stock options, stock index futures, and options on such futures simultaneously expire: regarded as a time of extreme volatility in trading.
- tubing head pressure — The tubing head pressure is the pressure on the tubing, which is measured at the wellhead.
- video graphics array — (hardware) (VGA) A display standard for IBM PCs, with 640 x 480 pixels in 16 colours and a 4:3 aspect ratio. There is also a text mode with 720 x 400 pixels. IBM technical references define the *product name* of their original VGA display board as "Video Graphics Array", in contrast to the preceding boards, the "Color Graphics Adapter" (CGA) and "Enhanced Graphics Adapter" (EGA). See also Super Video Graphics Adapter.
- visual merchandising — Visual merchandising is the use of attractive displays and floor plans to increase customer numbers and sales volumes.
- warrensville heights — a city in NE Ohio.
- watering of the eyes — the formation of tears in the eyes
- weights and measures — units or standards of measurement
- white-flowered gourd — the hard-shelled fruit of any of various plants, especially those of Lagenaria siceraria (white-flowered gourd or bottle gourd) whose dried shell is used for bowls and other utensils, and Cucurbita pepo (yellow-flowered gourd) used ornamentally. Compare gourd family.