17-letter words containing h, o, m, e, p, n
- non-thermoplastic — soft and pliable when heated, as some plastics, without any change of the inherent properties.
- nonaccomplishment — Something that does not achieve the intended goal.
- omphalomesenteric — (anatomy) Of or pertaining to the umbilicus and mesentery.
- phantom pregnancy — the occurrence of signs of pregnancy, such as enlarged abdomen and absence of menstruation, when no embryo is present, due to hormonal imbalance
- phase of the moon — Used humorously as a random parameter on which something is said to depend. Sometimes implies unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to determine. "This feature depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon." See also heisenbug. True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend on the phase of the moon. There was a little subroutine that had traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an approximation to the moon's true phase. GLS incorporated this routine into a Lisp program that, when it wrote out a file, would print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long. Very occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read back in the program would barf. The length of the first line depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug literally depended on the phase of the moon! The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but the typesetter "corrected" it. This has since been described as the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.
- phenylformic acid — benzoic acid.
- photoluminescence — luminescence induced by the absorption of infrared radiation, visible light, or ultraviolet radiation.
- phumiphon aduldet — (Phumiphon Aduldet; Bhumibol Adulyadej) born 1927, king of Thailand since 1946.
- plymouth brethren — a religious sect founded c. 1827, strongly Puritanical in outlook and prohibiting many secular occupations for its members. It combines elements of Calvinism, Pietism, and millenarianism, and has no organized ministry
- polymorphonuclear — (of a leukocyte) having a lobulate nucleus.
- portmanteau morph — a phonological unit of more than one morpheme, as French au to (him) from a to + le masculine article, which realizes a preposition and the definite article; a single morph that is analyzed as representing two underlying morphemes.
- pseudo-humanistic — a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
- put on the market — offer for sale
- rhodope mountains — a mountain range in SE Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula extending along the border between Bulgaria and Greece. Highest peak: Golyam Perelik (Bulgaria), 2191 m (7188 ft)
- ribbon microphone — a microphone that utilizes a metal ribbon suspended in a magnetic field.
- south sea company — a British joint stock company that traded in South America in the 18th century. The South Sea Company took over the national debt in return for a monopoly of trade with the South Seas, causing feverish speculation in their stocks, and a financial crash in 1720 (the South Sea Bubble)
- southampton water — an inlet of the English Channel in S England
- spiny-headed worm — any of a small group of endoparasites of the phylum Acanthocephala, as larvae parasitic in insects and crustaceans and as adults in various vertebrates.
- spongy parenchyma — the lower layer of the ground tissue of a leaf, characteristically containing irregularly shaped cells with relatively few chloroplasts and large intercellular spaces.
- steamship company — a company which has a fleet of steamships
- stenothermophilic — growing best within a narrow temperature range.
- support mechanism — any formal system or method of providing support or assistance
- surprise symphony — the Symphony No. 94 in G major (1791) by Franz Josef Haydn.
- teething problems — If a project or new product has teething problems, it has problems in its early stages or when it first becomes available.
- telephone message — a message that is transmitted by telephone
- telephone numbers — extremely large numbers, esp in reference to salaries or prices
- the underemployed — underemployed people
- thermal expansion — expansion caused by heat
- thermal pollution — a rise in the temperature of rivers or lakes that is injurious to water-dwelling life and is caused by the disposal of heated industrial waste water or water from the cooling towers of nuclear power plants.
- thiopental sodium — a barbiturate, C 11 H 18 N 2 NaO 2 S, used as an anesthetic in surgery and, in psychiatry, for narcoanalysis and to stimulate recall of past events.
- thompson seedless — a yellow, seedless variety of grape used in producing raisins.
- throat microphone — a microphone worn around the throat and actuated by vibrations of the larynx, used when background noise would obscure the sound of speech, as in an airplane cockpit.
- uncomprehendingly — to understand the nature or meaning of; grasp with the mind; perceive: He did not comprehend the significance of the ambassador's remark.