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17-letter words containing h

  • boothia peninsula — a peninsula of N Canada: the northernmost part of the mainland of North America, lying west of the Gulf of Boothia, an arm of the Arctic Ocean
  • bottlebrush grass — a North American grass, Hystrix patula, having loose flower spikes with long awns.
  • brain haemorrhage — bleeding into the brain
  • branch delay slot — delayed control-transfer
  • branch prediction — (processor, algorithm)   A technique used in some processors with instruction prefetch to guess whether a conditional branch will be taken or not and prefetch code from the appropriate location. When a branch instruction is executed, its address and that of the next instruction executed (the chosen destination of the branch) are stored in the Branch Target Buffer. This information is used to predict which way the instruction will branch the next time it is executed so that instruction prefetch can continue. When the prediction is correct (and it is over 90% of the time), executing a branch does not cause a pipeline break. Some later CPUs simply prefetch both paths instead of trying to predict which way the branch will go. An extension of the idea of branch prediction is speculative execution.
  • brazilian rhatany — See under rhatany (def 1).
  • breach of promise — (formerly) failure to carry out one's promise to marry
  • break one's heart — to grieve or cause to grieve very deeply, esp through love
  • break the back of — to complete the greatest or hardest part of (a task)
  • breathe life into — revive, rejuvenate
  • brezhnev doctrine — the doctrine expounded by Leonid Brezhnev in November 1968 affirming the right of the Soviet Union to intervene in the affairs of Communist countries to strengthen Communism.
  • brightening agent — a compound applied to a textile to increase its brightness by the conversion of ultraviolet radiation to visible (blue) light, used in detergents
  • brighton and hove — a city and unitary authority in S England, in East Sussex. Pop: 251 500 (2003 est). Area: 72 sq km (28 sq miles)
  • bring up the rear — to be at the back in a procession, race, etc
  • british cameroons — a former British trust territory of West Africa
  • british columbian — of or relating to British Columbia or its inhabitants
  • british israelite — a member of a religious movement claiming that the British people are descended from the lost tribes of Israel
  • british shorthair — a breed of large cat with a short dense coat
  • british-cameroons — German Kamerun. a region in W Africa: a German protectorate 1884–1919; divided in 1919 into British and French mandates.
  • broad-winged hawk — an American hawk, Buteo platypterus, dark brown above and white barred with rufous below.
  • broadview heights — a town in N Ohio.
  • broken white line — a regular, discontinuous white line on a roadway, indicating that overtaking is permitted
  • buckingham palace — the London residence of the British sovereign: built in 1703, rebuilt by John Nash in 1821–36 and partially redesigned in the early 20th century
  • bull of the woods — the foreman of a logging operation.
  • buncher resonator — See under Klystron.
  • bursting strength — the capacity of a thing or substance to resist change when under pressure.
  • bury the tomahawk — to stop fighting; make peace
  • bushman's singlet — a sleeveless heavy black woollen singlet, used as working clothing by timber fellers
  • buttock-clenching — making one tighten the buttocks through extreme fear or embarrassment
  • buttonhole stitch — a reinforcing looped stitch for the edge of material, such as around a buttonhole
  • by the same token — You use by the same token to introduce a statement that you think is true for the same reasons that were given for a previous statement.
  • caa the feet frae — to send (a person) sprawling
  • cache consistency — cache coherency
  • calcium hydroxide — a white crystalline slightly soluble alkali with many uses, esp in cement, water softening, and the neutralization of acid soils. Formula: Ca(OH)2
  • calcium phosphate — the insoluble nonacid calcium salt of orthophosphoric acid (phosphoric(V) acid): it occurs in bones and is the main constituent of bone ash. Formula: Ca3(PO4)2
  • called to the bar — admitted to the practice of law as a barrister
  • can't be bothered — If you say that you can't be bothered to do something, you mean that you are not going to do it because you think it is unnecessary or because you are too lazy.
  • cannot choose but — to be obliged to
  • cape horn current — the part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing E at Cape Horn.
  • cape of good hope — a cape in SW South Africa south of Cape Town
  • carbon disulphide — a colourless slightly soluble volatile flammable poisonous liquid commonly having a disagreeable odour due to the presence of impurities: used as an organic solvent and in the manufacture of rayon and carbon tetrachloride. Formula: CS2
  • carbon microphone — a microphone in which a diaphragm, vibrated by sound waves, applies a varying pressure to a container packed with carbon granules, altering the resistance of the carbon. A current flowing through the carbon is thus modulated at the frequency of the sound waves
  • carbonyl chloride — phosgene
  • carboxyhemoglobin — a compound formed in the blood when carbon monoxide occupies the positions on the hemoglobin molecule normally taken by oxygen, resulting in cellular oxygen starvation
  • cardiogenic shock — a type of shock caused by decreased cardiac output despite adequate blood volume, owing to a disease of the heart itself, as myocardial infarction, or any other factor that interferes with the filling or emptying of the heart.
  • carry a torch for — If you say that someone is carrying a torch for someone else, you mean that they secretly admire them or love them.
  • cartoon character — one of the people or animals in an animated film
  • case-study method — Also called case-study method [keys-stuhd-ee] /ˈkeɪsˈstʌd i/ (Show IPA). the teaching or elucidation of a subject or issue through analysis and discussion of actual cases, as in business education.
  • casting the runes — (jargon)   What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program because it never works for anyone else; especially used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does. Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight.
  • castle in the air — a hope or desire unlikely to be realized; daydream
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