20-letter words containing h, i, n
- proof of the pudding — the true value or quality of something, as seen when it is experienced, tried, or put to use: The proof of the pudding for a business is what customers say about it.
- prosthetic dentistry — prosthodontics.
- psychological moment — the proper or critical time for achieving a desired result: She found the right psychological moment to make her request.
- psychometric testing — the use of psychometric tests, often as a selection method
- public lending right — (in Britain) an act of Parliament that directs compensation to an author for the library loan of his or her book.
- punch a (time) clock — to insert a timecard into a time clock when coming to or going from work
- pyroligneous alcohol — methyl alcohol.
- quaker meeting house — a place where Quakers gather for worship
- quantum field theory — any theory in which fields are treated by the methods of quantum mechanics; each field can then be regarded as consisting of particles of a particular kind, which may be created and annihilated.
- quarantine anchorage — an anchorage for ships awaiting a pratique.
- queen elizabeth land — an area of British Antarctic Territory, situated south of Weddell Sea and between longitudes 20°W and 80°W, stretching from Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf to the South Pole. Area: 437 000 sq km (169 000 sq miles)
- queen of the prairie — a tall plant, Filipendula rubra, of the rose family, having branching clusters of pink flowers, growing in meadows and prairies.
- quick on the trigger — quick to fire a gun
- rachel louise carson — Christopher ("Kit") 1809–68, U.S. frontiersman and scout.
- recreational therapy — therapy by means of recreational activities engaged in by the patient
- recreational vehicle — a van or utility vehicle used for recreational purposes, as camping, and often equipped with living facilities. Abbreviation: RV.
- return of the native — a novel (1878) by Thomas Hardy.
- rhineland-palatinate — a state in W Germany: formerly part of Rhine Province. 7655 sq. mi. (19,825 sq. km). Capital: Mainz.
- ride on shank's mare — to walk
- ring of the nibelung — Richard Wagner's tetralogy of music dramas: Das Rheingold (completed 1869), Die Walküre (completed 1870), Siegfried (completed 1876), and Götterdämmerung (completed 1876): the cycle was first performed at Bayreuth, 1876.
- ring-necked pheasant — a gallinaceous Asian bird, Phasianus colchicus, having a white band around its neck, introduced into Great Britain, North America, and the Hawaiian Islands.
- 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.
- rise to the occasion — to have the courage, wit, etc, to meet the special demands of a situation
- rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
- roller-blind shutter — curtain shutter.
- 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
- rub sb's nose in sth — To rub someone's nose in something that they do not want to think about, such as a failing or a mistake they have made, means to remind them repeatedly about it.
- saint anthony's fire — any of certain skin conditions that are of an inflammatory or gangrenous nature, as erysipelas, hospital gangrene, or ergotism.
- saint john ambulance — an organization that provides first aid and first-aid training
- saint thomas aquinas — Saint, Aquinas, Saint Thomas.
- 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.
- saxe-weimar-eisenach — a former grand duchy in Thuringia in central Germany.
- scatter site housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.
- schizoid personality — sb with identity disorder
- schrodinger equation — the wave equation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. Also called Schrödinger wave equation. Compare wave equation (def 2).
- scottish nationalism — a political ideology advocating the independence of Scotland
- season ticket holder — a person who has a season ticket
- see with half an eye — the organ of sight, in vertebrates typically one of a pair of spherical bodies contained in an orbit of the skull and in humans appearing externally as a dense, white, curved membrane, or sclera, surrounding a circular, colored portion, or iris, that is covered by a clear, curved membrane, or cornea, and in the center of which is an opening, or pupil, through which light passes to the retina.
- serpentine stretcher — an X -stretcher having curved lines.
- 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)
- settle accounts with — to pay or receive a balance due
- seven against thebes — (used with a plural verb) Classical Mythology. seven heroes, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Eteoclus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Polynices, and Tydeus, who led an expedition against Thebes to depose Eteocles in favor of his brother Polynices: the expedition failed, but the Epigoni, the sons of the Seven against Thebes, conquered the city ten years later.
- sex change operation — a surgical operation designed to change a person's physical sexual characteristics to those of the opposite sex
- shake in one's shoes — to tremble with fear or apprehension
- shank of the evening — the latter part of the afternoon
- shear transformation — a map of a coordinate space in which one coordinate is held fixed and the other coordinate or coordinates are shifted.
- shifting cultivation — a land-use system, esp in tropical Africa, in which a tract of land is cultivated until its fertility diminishes, when it is abandoned until this is restored naturally
- short back and sides — If a man has a short back and sides, his hair is cut very short at the back and sides with slightly thicker, longer hair on the top of the head.