15-letter words containing h, i, r, o, s
- borough-english — (until 1925) a custom in certain English boroughs whereby the youngest son inherited land to the exclusion of his older brothers
- borscht circuit — summer resort hotels in the Catskills and White Mountains, where entertainment is provided for the guests
- boustrophedonic — of or relating to lines written in opposite directions
- brachistochrone — the curve between two points through which a body moves under the force of gravity in a shorter time than for any other curve; the path of quickest descent
- branchiostegous — branchiostegal.
- bridge of sighs — a covered 16th-century bridge in Venice, between the Doges' Palace and the prisons, through which prisoners were formerly led to trial or execution
- bristol channel — an inlet of the Atlantic, between S Wales and SW England, merging into the Severn estuary. Length: about 137 km (85 miles)
- bristol fashion — clean and neat, with newly painted and scrubbed surfaces, brass polished, etc
- british council — an organization founded (1934) to extend the influence of British culture and education throughout the world
- british telecom — the popular name for British Telecommunications Group plc, the dominant fixed line telecommunications and broadband internet provider in the United Kingdom
- broca's aphasia — a type of aphasia caused by a lesion in Broca's area of the brain, characterized by misarticulated speech and lack of grammatical morphemes.
- bronchial tubes — the bronchi or their smaller divisions
- brother-in-arms — a fellow soldier or comrade in a shared struggle
- caernarvonshire — (until 1974) a county of NW Wales, now part of Gwynedd
- catastrophising — Present participle of catastrophise.
- catastrophizing — Present participle of catastrophize.
- catheterisation — Alternative spelling of catheterization.
- chairpersonship — a person who presides over a meeting, committee, board, etc.
- chamois leather — soft cleaning cloth
- charles simonyi — (person) Microsoft programmer, most famously responsible for Hungarian Notation. Simonyi was born in Budapest in 1948, and for more than a decade was senior programmer at Microsoft in Redmond.
- charlottesville — city in central Va.: pop. 45,000
- charm offensive — If you say that someone has launched a charm offensive, you disapprove of the fact that they are being very friendly to their opponents or people who are causing problems for them.
- chemopsychiatry — the study and application of chemical substances in psychiatry
- chemosterilants — Plural form of chemosterilant.
- chicken lobster — a young lobster weighing 1 pound (0.4 kg) or less.
- chief inspector — an officer of high rank in British police forces
- children's home — care institution for minors
- children's hour — a play (1934) by Lillian Hellman.
- chinless wonder — a person, esp an upper-class one, lacking strength of character
- cholesterolemia — the presence of an abnormal amount of cholesterol in the blood.
- choral speaking — recitation of poetry, dramatic pieces, etc. by a chorus of speakers
- chorioallantois — the membrane of a fetus that is formed by the merging of the allantois and the chorion
- chorioretinitis — (medicine) An inflammation of the choroid and retina of the eye.
- christcross-row — the alphabet.
- christmas carol — a joyful hymn or religious song, celebrating the birth of Christ
- chromatic scale — a twelve-note scale including all the semitones of the octave
- chronic disease — long-term illness
- chronobiologist — A person who is involved in chronobiology.
- church slavonic — Old Church Slavonic, esp as preserved in the liturgical use of the Orthodox church
- claustrophobics — Plural form of claustrophobic.
- cocktail shaker — a container in which cocktails are mixed
- comparison-shop — to compare prices and quality of competing merchandise.
- comprehensively — Something that is done comprehensively is done thoroughly.
- comprehensivize — to make (an educational system) comprehensive
- comptrollership — controller (def 1).
- computer ethics — (philosophy) Ethics is the field of study that is concerned with questions of value, that is, judgments about what human behaviour is "good" or "bad". Ethical judgments are no different in the area of computing from those in any other area. Computers raise problems of privacy, ownership, theft, and power, to name but a few. Computer ethics can be grounded in one of four basic world-views: Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, or Existentialism. Idealists believe that reality is basically ideas and that ethics therefore involves conforming to ideals. Realists believe that reality is basically nature and that ethics therefore involves acting according to what is natural. Pragmatists believe that reality is not fixed but is in process and that ethics therefore is practical (that is, concerned with what will produce socially-desired results). Existentialists believe reality is self-defined and that ethics therefore is individual (that is, concerned only with one's own conscience). Idealism and Realism can be considered ABSOLUTIST worldviews because they are based on something fixed (that is, ideas or nature, respectively). Pragmatism and Existentialism can be considered RELATIVIST worldviews because they are based or something relational (that is, society or the individual, respectively). Thus ethical judgments will vary, depending on the judge's world-view. Some examples: First consider theft. Suppose a university's computer is used for sending an e-mail message to a friend or for conducting a full-blown private business (billing, payroll, inventory, etc.). The absolutist would say that both activities are unethical (while recognising a difference in the amount of wrong being done). A relativist might say that the latter activities were wrong because they tied up too much memory and slowed down the machine, but the e-mail message wasn't wrong because it had no significant effect on operations. Next consider privacy. An instructor uses her account to acquire the cumulative grade point average of a student who is in a class which she instructs. She obtained the password for this restricted information from someone in the Records Office who erroneously thought that she was the student's advisor. The absolutist would probably say that the instructor acted wrongly, since the only person who is entitled to this information is the student and his or her advisor. The relativist would probably ask why the instructor wanted the information. If she replied that she wanted it to be sure that her grading of the student was consistent with the student's overall academic performance record, the relativist might agree that such use was acceptable. Finally, consider power. At a particular university, if a professor wants a computer account, all she or he need do is request one but a student must obtain faculty sponsorship in order to receive an account. An absolutist (because of a proclivity for hierarchical thinking) might not have a problem with this divergence in procedure. A relativist, on the other hand, might question what makes the two situations essentially different (e.g. are faculty assumed to have more need for computers than students? Are students more likely to cause problems than faculty? Is this a hold-over from the days of "in loco parentis"?).
- connoisseurship — a person who is especially competent to pass critical judgments in an art, particularly one of the fine arts, or in matters of taste: a connoisseur of modern art.
- conservatorship — the legal status of a person appointed by a court to protect the interests of someone, such as a child, who is unable to manage his or her own affairs
- consumer choice — the range of competing products and services from which a consumer can choose
- costochondritis — (medicine) A benign inflammation of the costal cartilage, causing pain between the ribs.