21-letter words containing h, s, t, r
- give a horse its head — to allow a horse to gallop by lengthening the reins
- give sb a green light — If someone in authority gives you a green light, they give you permission to do something.
- give sb the runaround — If someone gives you the runaround, they deliberately do not give you all the information or help that you want, and send you to another person or place to get it.
- give someone the bird — to tell someone rudely to depart; scoff at; hiss
- goldbach's conjecture — the conjecture that every even number greater than two is the sum of two prime numbers
- got what one deserved — If you say that someone got what they deserved, you mean that they deserved the bad thing that happened to them, and you have no sympathy for them.
- greenwich observatory — the national astronomical observatory of Great Britain, housed in a castle in E Sussex; formerly located at Greenwich.
- guaranteed scheduling — (algorithm) A scheduling algorithm used in multitasking operating systems that guarantees fairness by monitoring the amount of CPU time spent by each user and allocating resources accordingly.
- harriet beecher stowe — Harriet (Elizabeth) Beecher, 1811–96, U.S. abolitionist and novelist.
- have a strong stomach — not to be prone to nausea
- have heard sth before — If you say that you have heard something before, you mean that you are not interested in it, or do not believe it, or are not surprised about it, because you already know about it or have experienced it.
- have the inside track — If you say that someone has the inside track, you mean that they have an advantage, for example special knowledge about something.
- help a person on with — to assist a person in the putting on of (clothes)
- henry steele commager — Henry Steele, 1902–98, U.S. historian, author, and teacher.
- heterogeneous network — (networking) A network running multiple network layer protocols such as DECnet, IP, IPX, XNS.
- hierarchical database — (database) A kind of database management system that links records together like a family tree such that each record type has only one owner, e.g. an order is owned by only one customer. Hierarchical structures were widely used in the first mainframe database management systems. However, due to their restrictions, they often cannot be used to relate structures that exist in the real world.
- high court of justice — an English court formed in 1873 from several superior courts and consisting of a court of original jurisdiction (High Court of Justice) and an appellate court (Court of Appeal)
- highest common factor — greatest common divisor. Abbreviation: H.C.F.
- historic places trust — (in New Zealand) the statutory body concerned with the conservation of historic buildings, esp with ancient Māori sites
- homolosine projection — an equal-area projection of the world, distorting ocean areas in order to minimize the distortion of the continents.
- horizontal stabilizer — the horizontal surface, usually fixed, of an aircraft empennage, to which the elevator is hinged.
- horns and halo effect — a tendency to allow one's judgement of another person, esp in a job interview, to be unduly influenced by an unfavourable (horns) or favourable (halo) first impression based on appearances
- house of prostitution — a brothel.
- human rights activist — a person who campaigns for human rights
- hypercholesterolaemia — the condition of having a high concentration of cholesterol in the blood
- hyperkinetic disorder — another name for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- hysterosalpingography — (medicine) X-ray examination of the uterus and oviducts following injection of a radiopaque substance.
- immunoelectrophoresis — a technique for the separation and identification of mixtures of proteins, consisting of electrophoresis followed by immunodiffusion.
- in (or out of) phase — in (or not in) a state of exactly parallel movements, oscillations, etc.; in (or not in) synchronization
- in more ways than one — You say in more ways than one to indicate that what you have said is intended to have more than one meaning.
- in one's shirtsleeves — not wearing a jacket
- in the course of time — eventually
- in the first instance — You say in the first instance to mention something that is the first step in a series of actions.
- indicated horse-power — the horsepower of a reciprocating engine as shown by an indicator record. Abbreviation: ihp, IHP.
- industrial psychology — the application of psychological principles and techniques to business and industrial problems, as in the selection of personnel or development of training programs.
- insulin shock therapy — a former treatment for mental illness, especially schizophrenia, employing insulin-induced hypoglycemia as a method for producing convulsive seizures.
- internet chess server — (networking, games) An interactive meeting-place on the Internet where people can play chess against each other.
- interpersonal therapy — a type of psychotherapy that focuses on conflicts in one's personal relationships.
- japanese stranglehold — a wrestling hold in which an opponent's wrists are pulled to cross his or her arms in front of his or her own neck and exert pressure on the windpipe
- joseph bonaparte gulf — an inlet of the Timor Sea in N Australia. Width: 360 km (225 miles)
- lactate dehydrogenase — an enzyme that catalyzes the interconversion of pyruvate and lactate, an important step in carbohydrate metabolism: elevated serum levels indicate injury to kidney, skeletal muscle, or heart muscle. Abbreviation: LDH.
- lady macbeth strategy — a strategy in a takeover battle in which a third party makes a bid acceptable to the target company, appearing to act as a white knight but subsequently joining forces with the original (unwelcome) bidder
- lap and shoulder belt — a car seat belt
- law of thermodynamics — any of three principles variously stated in equivalent forms, being the principle that the change of energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work done (first law of thermodynamics) the principle that no cyclic process is possible in which heat is absorbed from a reservoir at a single temperature and converted completely into mechanical work (second law of thermodynamics) and the principle that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations (third law of thermodynamics)
- leave sb in the lurch — If someone leaves you in the lurch, they go away or stop helping you at a very difficult time.
- loch ness monster bug — (humour) (Or "Bugfoot") A bug which cannot be reproduced or has only been sighted by one person. Named after the mythical creature claimed to inhabit Loch Ness in Scotland.
- lordship of the isles — an overlordship of the Western Isles of Scotland and adjacent lands instituted in 1266 when Magnus of Norway ceded the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, and Kintyre to the King of Scotland, and claimed by the chiefs of Clan Dougall and later by those of Clan Donald. The title was forfeited to James IV in 1493 and is now held by the eldest son of the sovereign
- lose one's heart (to) — to fall in love (with)
- lost in the underflow — (jargon) Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to "floating point underflow". The Hacker's Jargon File claimed that it is also a pun on "undertow" (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the underflow". Compare epsilon, epsilon squared; see also overflow bit.
- lotus-of-the-true-law — a Mahayana sutra, forming with its references to Amida and the Bodhisattvas the basis for the doctrine that there is something of Buddha in everyone, so that salvation is universally available: a central text of Mahayana Buddhism.