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17-letter words containing h, p, s

  • merchant shipping — shipping which is involved in commerce (rather than defence, etc)
  • mercuric sulphide — a compound of mercury, usually existing as a black solid (metacinnabarite) or a red solid (cinnabar or vermilion), which is used as a pigment. Formula: HgS
  • morphic resonance — the idea that, through a telepathic effect or sympathetic vibration, an event or act can lead to similar events or acts in the future or an idea conceived in one mind can then arise in another
  • mother spleenwort — a fern, Asplenium bulbiferum, of tropical Africa and Australasia, the fronds often bearing bulbils that sprout into new plants while still attached, grown as an ornamental.
  • muscle dysmorphia — a mental disorder primarily affecting males, characterized by obsessions about a perceived lack of muscularity, leading to compulsive exercising, use of anabolic steroids, etc. Compare body dysmorphic disorder.
  • neurophysiologist — the branch of physiology dealing with the functions of the nervous system.
  • neuropsychiatrist — A medical doctor specializing in neuropsychiatry; a medical doctor dealing with disorders that have both neurological and psychiatric features.
  • neuropsychologist — A neurologist or psychologist whose speciality is neuropsychology.
  • non-comprehension — the act or process of comprehending.
  • 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.
  • nonphotosynthetic — the complex process by which carbon dioxide, water, and certain inorganic salts are converted into carbohydrates by green plants, algae, and certain bacteria, using energy from the sun and chlorophyll.
  • northeast passage — a ship route along the N coast of Europe and Asia, between the North Sea and the Pacific.
  • northern sporades — a group of Greek islands in the Aegean, lying northeast of Euboea
  • northwest passage — a ship route along the Arctic coast of Canada and Alaska, joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
  • old people's home — An old people's home is a place where old people live and are cared for when they are too old to look after themselves.
  • old spanish trail — an overland route from Santa Fe, N. Mex., to Los Angeles, Calif., first marked out in 1776 by Spanish explorers and missionaries.
  • omphalomesenteric — (anatomy) Of or pertaining to the umbilicus and mesentery.
  • on the pig's back — successful; established
  • one-stop shopping — the provision of everything that a customer or client might require in one place
  • opisthobranchiate — (zoology) Of or pertaining to the Opisthobranchiata.
  • organic psychosis — a severe mental illness produced by damage to the brain, as a result of poisoning, alcoholism, disease, etc
  • organophosphorous — Misspelling of organophosphorus.
  • overstep the mark — If someone oversteps the mark, they behave in a way that is considered unacceptable.
  • pacific northwest — the region of North America lying north of the Columbia River and west of the Rockies
  • paleobiochemistry — the study of biochemical processes that occurred in fossil life forms.
  • parker house roll — a soft dinner roll made by folding a flat disk of dough in half.
  • parmesan (cheese) — a very hard, dry cheese orig. of Italy, made from skimmed cow's milk and usually grated for sprinkling on pasta, soups, etc.
  • partially sighted — unable to see properly so that even with corrective aids normal activities are prevented or seriously hindered
  • pashmina politics — the adoption of political policies immediately after they have gone out of fashion
  • past life therapy — a form of hypnosis or meditation based on the belief that an individual's present problems are rooted in events that occurred before birth in this life
  • pastoral symphony — the Symphony No. 6 in F major (1807–08) by Ludwig van Beethoven.
  • pastoral theology — the branch of theology dealing with the responsibilities of members of the clergy to the people under their care.
  • patriarchal cross — a Latin cross having a shorter crosspiece above the customary one.
  • peaches and cream — If you say that a woman or a girl has a peaches and cream complexion, you mean that she has very clear, smooth, pale skin.
  • pecorino (cheese) — an Italian cheese made of sheep's milk; specif., such a cheese that is dry, sharp, and very hard
  • penalty shoot-out — In football, a penalty shoot-out is a way of deciding the result of a game that has ended in a draw. Players from each team try to score a goal in turn until one player fails to score and their team loses the game.
  • peripheral vision — all that is visible to the eye outside the central area of focus; side vision.
  • perpetual spinach — a variety of spinach that keeps producing edible leaves
  • personality clash — friction between two people who have different personalities or points of view
  • perth and kinross — a council area of N central Scotland, corresponding mainly to the historical counties of Perthshire and Kinross-shire: part of Tayside Region from 1975 until 1996: chiefly mountainous, with agriculture, tourism, and forestry. Administrative centre: Perth. Pop: 135 990 (2003 est). Area: 5321 sq km (2019 sq miles)
  • petrarchan sonnet — a sonnet form popularized by Petrarch, consisting of an octave with the rhyme scheme abbaabba and of a sestet with one of several rhyme schemes, as cdecde or cdcdcd.
  • 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.
  • phenyl isocyanate — a liquid reagent, C 7 H 5 NO, having an unpleasant, irritating odor: used chiefly for identifying alcohols and amines.
  • philosopher kings — the Platonic ideal of a ruler, philosophically trained and enlightened.
  • phlebotomus fever — sandfly fever.
  • photo-composition — any method of composition using photography, as composition by means of a photocomposer.
  • photo-respiration — the oxidation of carbohydrates in many higher plants in which they get oxygen from light and then release carbon dioxide, somewhat different from photosynthesis.
  • photodissociation — the dissociation or breakdown of a chemical compound by radiant energy.
  • photoluminescence — luminescence induced by the absorption of infrared radiation, visible light, or ultraviolet radiation.
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