17-letter words containing h, o, r, m, n, a
- fifth normal form — database normalisation
- four-part harmony — harmony in which each chord has four tones, creating, in sum, four melodic lines.
- french somaliland — a former name of Djibouti (def 1).
- from hand to hand — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
- genetic algorithm — (GA) An evolutionary algorithm which generates each individual from some encoded form known as a "chromosome" or "genome". Chromosomes are combined or mutated to breed new individuals. "Crossover", the kind of recombination of chromosomes found in sexual reproduction in nature, is often also used in GAs. Here, an offspring's chromosome is created by joining segments choosen alternately from each of two parents' chromosomes which are of fixed length. GAs are useful for multidimensional optimisation problems in which the chromosome can encode the values for the different variables being optimised.
- geothermal energy — Geothermal energy is energy from temperature differences inside the earth's crust.
- go on the rampage — If people go on the rampage, they rush about in a wild or violent way, causing damage or destruction.
- grandmother clock — a pendulum clock similar to a grandfather's clock but shorter.
- great-grandmother — a grandmother of one's father or mother.
- haematocrystallin — Alternative form of hematocrystallin.
- haemoglobinometer — an instrument used to determine the haemoglobin content of blood
- harmonic analysis — the calculation of Fourier series and their generalization.
- harmonic interval — an intervening period of time: an interval of 50 years.
- heat of formation — the heat evolved or absorbed when one mole of a compound is formed from its constituent atoms
- heavy mineral oil — a colorless, oily, almost tasteless, water-insoluble liquid, usually of either a standard light density (light mineral oil) or a standard heavy density (heavy mineral oil) consisting of mixtures of hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum by distillation: used chiefly as a lubricant, in the manufacture of cosmetics, and in medicine as a laxative.
- hemoconcentration — an increase in the concentration of cellular elements in the blood, resulting from loss of plasma.
- heteronormativity — The view that all human beings are either male or female, both in sex and in gender, and that sexual and romantic thoughts and relations are normal only when between people of different sexes.
- histamine blocker — any of various substances that act at a specific receptor site to block certain actions of histamine.
- ho chi minh trail — a network of jungle paths winding from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam, used as a military route by North Vietnam to supply the Vietcong during the Vietnam War.
- hoare powerdomain — powerdomain
- hold sb to ransom — If you say that someone is holding you to ransom in British English, or holding you for ransom in American English, you mean that they are using their power to try to force you to do something which you do not want to do.
- hollerith, herman — Herman Hollerith
- holy roman empire — a Germanic empire located chiefly in central Europe that began with the coronation of Charlemagne as Roman emperor in a.d. 800 (or, according to some historians, with the coronation of Otto the Great, king of Germany, in a.d. 962) and ended with the renunciation of the Roman imperial title by Francis II in 1806, and was regarded theoretically as the continuation of the Western Empire and as the temporal form of a universal dominion whose spiritual head was the pope.
- homeland security — national defence
- honorable mention — a citation conferred on a contestant, exhibit, etc., having exceptional merit though not winning a top honor or prize.
- hormone treatment — any of several medical treatments using hormones
- hydrothermal vent — an opening on the floor of the sea from which hot, mineral-rich solutions issue. Compare vent1 (def 2).
- hydroxytryptamine — (organic compound) Any hydroxy derivative of tryptamine, but especially 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin).
- hyperalimentation — overfeeding.
- hyperpigmentation — coloration, especially of the skin.
- hypophrygian mode — a plagal church mode represented on the white keys of a keyboard instrument by an ascending scale from B to B, with the final on E.
- immunotherapeutic — (immunology, medicine) Of a pharmaceutical, acting on the immune system to treat disease; used in immunotherapy.
- implosion therapy — a form of behavior therapy involving intensive recollection and review of anxiety-producing situations or events in a patient's life in an attempt to develop more appropriate responses to similar situations in the future.
- in a/the minority — If people are in a minority or in the minority, they belong to a group of people or things that form less than half of a larger group.
- in the market for — an open place or a covered building where buyers and sellers convene for the sale of goods; a marketplace: a farmers' market.
- intermediate host — the host in which a parasite undergoes development but does not reach sexual maturity.
- isherwood framing — a system for framing steel vessels in which light, closely spaced, longitudinal frames are connected by heavy, widely spaced transverse frames with deep webs.
- lagrange's method — a procedure for finding maximum and minimum values of a function of several variables when the variables are restricted by additional conditions.
- langmuir isotherm — A Langmuir isotherm is a classical relationship between the concentrations of a solid and a fluid, used to describe a state of no change in the sorption process.
- laurent's theorem — the theorem that a function that is analytic on an annulus can be represented by a Laurent series on the annulus.
- light mineral oil — a colorless, oily, almost tasteless, water-insoluble liquid, usually of either a standard light density (light mineral oil) or a standard heavy density (heavy mineral oil) consisting of mixtures of hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum by distillation: used chiefly as a lubricant, in the manufacture of cosmetics, and in medicine as a laxative.
- lithium carbonate — a colorless crystalline compound, Li 2 CO 3 , slightly soluble in water: used in ceramic and porcelain glazes, pharmaceuticals, and luminescent paints.
- lombrosian school — a school of criminology, promulgating the theories and employing the methods developed by Lombroso.
- lymphangiographic — Relating to lymphangiography.
- man enough to/for — If you say that a man is man enough to do something, you mean that he has the necessary courage or ability to do it.
- man on the street — man in the street.
- manchester school — a school of economists in England in the first half of the 19th century, devoted to free trade and the repeal of the Corn Law, led by Richard Cobden and John Bright.
- manhattan project — U.S. History. the unofficial designation for the U.S. War Department's secret program, organized in 1942, to explore the isolation of radioactive isotopes and the production of an atomic bomb: initial research was conducted at Columbia University in Manhattan.
- manna from heaven — Bible: food from heaven
- manufactured home — a prefabricated house, assembled in modular sections.