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20-letter words containing i, a, n, t, h

  • discounted cash flow — a technique for appraising an investment that takes into account the different values of future returns according to when they will be received
  • distress merchandise — goods sold below the prevailing price in order to raise cash quickly or to meet some other financial emergency.
  • distribution channel — trade: retailer
  • domestic heating oil — a liquid petroleum product used to fuel residential building furnaces or boilers
  • ecumenical patriarch — the patriarch of Constantinople, regarded as the highest dignitary of the Greek Orthodox Church.
  • electrohydrodynamics — (physics) the study of the dynamics of electrically conducting fluid.
  • elephant in the room — an obvious truth deliberately ignored by all parties in a situation
  • elizabeth of hungary — Saint. 1207–31, Hungarian princess who devoted herself to charity and asceticism. Feast day: Nov 17 and 19
  • environmental health — the issues dealt with by the Environmental Health Department of a local authority, such as prevention of the spread of communicable diseases, food safety and hygiene, control of infestation by insects or rodents, etc
  • epidural anaesthesia — numbing injection in the spine
  • erythema infectiosum — a mild infectious disease of childhood, caused by a virus, characterized by fever and a red rash spreading from the cheeks to the limbs and trunk
  • feather in one's cap — one of the horny structures forming the principal covering of birds, consisting typically of a hard, tubular portion attached to the body and tapering into a thinner, stemlike portion bearing a series of slender, barbed processes that interlock to form a flat structure on each side.
  • fermentation alcohol — alcohol (def 1).
  • fermentation-alcohol — Also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, ethanol, fermentation alcohol. a colorless, limpid, volatile, flammable, water-miscible liquid, C 2 H 5 OH, having an etherlike odor and pungent, burning taste, the intoxicating principle of fermented liquors, produced by yeast fermentation of certain carbohydrates, as grains, molasses, starch, or sugar, or obtained synthetically by hydration of ethylene or as a by-product of certain hydrocarbon syntheses: used chiefly as a solvent in the extraction of specific substances, in beverages, medicines, organic synthesis, lotions, tonics, colognes, rubbing compounds, as an automobile radiator antifreeze, and as a rocket fuel. Compare denatured alcohol, methyl alcohol.
  • fight tooth and nail — fight fiercely
  • finite state machine — (mathematics, algorithm, theory)   (FSM or "Finite State Automaton", "transducer") An abstract machine consisting of a set of states (including the initial state), a set of input events, a set of output events, and a state transition function. The function takes the current state and an input event and returns the new set of output events and the next state. Some states may be designated as "terminal states". The state machine can also be viewed as a function which maps an ordered sequence of input events into a corresponding sequence of (sets of) output events. A deterministic FSM (DFA) is one where the next state is uniquely determinied by a single input event. The next state of a nondeterministic FSM (NFA) depends not only on the current input event, but also on an arbitrary number of subsequent input events. Until these subsequent events occur it is not possible to determine which state the machine is in. It is possible to automatically translate any nondeterministic FSM into a deterministic one which will produce the same output given the same input. Each state in the DFA represents the set of states the NFA might be in at a given time. In a probabilistic FSM [proper name?], there is a predetermined probability of each next state given the current state and input (compare Markov chain). The terms "acceptor" and "transducer" are used particularly in language theory where automata are often considered as abstract machines capable of recognising a language (certain sequences of input events). An acceptor has a single Boolean output and accepts or rejects the input sequence by outputting true or false respectively, whereas a transducer translates the input into a sequence of output events. FSMs are used in computability theory and in some practical applications such as regular expressions and digital logic design. See also state transition diagram, Turing Machine.
  • florence nightingale — Florence ("the Lady with the Lamp") 1820–1910, English nurse: reformer of hospital conditions and procedures; reorganizer of nurse's training programs.
  • fontainebleau school — a group of artists, many of them Italian and Flemish, who worked on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau in the 16th century.
  • football hooliganism — the actions or behaviour of a football hooligan
  • for all one is worth — good or important enough to justify (what is specified): advice worth taking; a place worth visiting.
  • forty-ninth parallel — an informal name for the Canadian border with the USA, which is in part delineated by the parallel line of latitude at 49°N
  • fourth international — a loose federation of small groups of radical socialists formed in 1936 under the leadership of Leon Trotsky and hostile to the Soviet Union. Compare international (def 6).
  • frankfurt horizontal — Craniometry. the plane established when right and left poria and left orbitale are in the same horizontal plane.
  • freefall parachuting — a variety of parachuting in which the jumper manoeuvres in free fall before opening the parachute
  • friends of the earth — an organization of environmentalists and conservationists whose aim is to promote the sustainable use of the earth's resources
  • frosting on the cake — a sweet mixture, cooked or uncooked, for coating or filling cakes, cookies, and the like; icing.
  • generative phonology — a theory of phonology that uses a set of rules to derive phonetic representations from abstract underlying forms.
  • give one's right arm — to be prepared to make any sacrifice
  • give someone the air — a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and minute amounts of other gases that surrounds the earth and forms its atmosphere.
  • glucosamine sulphate — a compound used in some herbal remedies and dietary supplements, esp to strengthen joint cartilage
  • go against the grain — If you say that an idea or action goes against the grain, you mean that it is very difficult for you to accept it or do it, because it conflicts with your previous ideas, beliefs, or principles.
  • grand right and left — a figure called in square dancing in which partners face each other, forming a small circle, and then advance around the circle by extending alternating right and left hands to pull past each new person until they reach their partners again.
  • grand unified theory — a possible future quantum field theory that would encompass both the electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics. Abbreviation: GUT.
  • great northern diver — a large northern bird, Gavia immer, with a black-and-white chequered back and a black head and neck in summer: family Gaviidae (divers)
  • happy hunting ground — the North American Indian heaven, conceived of as a paradise of hunting and feasting for warriors and hunters.
  • hard gelatin capsule — A hard gelatin capsule is a type of capsule that is usually used to contain medicine in the form of dry powder or very small pellets.
  • have an itching palm — to desire money greedily
  • hawaii-standard-time — Alaska-Hawaii time.
  • he's no oil painting — he is not good-looking
  • health questionnaire — A health questionnaire is a list of questions about someone's health issued by underwriters before accepting a person as a risk.
  • heat of condensation — the heat liberated by a unit mass of gas at its boiling point as it condenses to a liquid: equal to the heat of vaporization.
  • heat of vaporization — the heat absorbed per unit mass of a given material at its boiling point that completely converts the material to a gas at the same temperature: equal to the heat of condensation.
  • helicopter parenting — a style of child rearing in which an overprotective mother or father discourages a child's independence by being too involved in the child's life: In typical helicopter parenting, a mother or father swoops in at any sign of challenge or discomfort.
  • helmeted guinea fowl — the common guinea fowl in its wild state.
  • heston and isleworth — a former borough, now part of Hounslow, in SE England, near London.
  • hexadecimal notation — a number system having a base 16; the symbols for the numbers 0–9 are the same as those used in the decimal system, and the numbers 10–15 are usually represented by the letters A–F. The system is used as a convenient way of representing the internal binary code of a computer
  • hexafluoroantimonate — (inorganic chemistry) The anion SbF6- or any salt containing this anion; it is used as an acidic catalyst in epoxide opening reactions.
  • hierarchical routing — The complex problem of routing on large networks can be simplified by breaking a network into a hierarchy of smaller networks, where each level is responsible for its own routing. The Internet has, basically, three levels: the backbones, the mid-levels, and the stub networks. The backbones know how to route between the mid-levels, the mid-levels know how to route between the sites, and each site (being an autonomous system) knows how to route internally. See also Exterior Gateway Protocol, Interior Gateway Protocol, transit network.
  • high-energy particle — Physics
  • hit the panic button — an alarm button for use in an emergency, as to summon help.
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