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20-letter words containing i, n, s, h

  • 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.
  • fight for one's life — Someone who is fighting for their life is making a great effort to stay alive, either when they are being physically attacked or when they are very ill.
  • fill someone's shoes — an external covering for the human foot, usually of leather and consisting of a more or less stiff or heavy sole and a lighter upper part ending a short distance above, at, or below the ankle.
  • 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.
  • first-person shooter — a type of video game in which the player assumes the field of vision of the protagonist, so that the game camera includes the character's weapon, but the rest of the character model is not seen. Abbreviation: FPS.
  • five-elements school — Yin-Yang School.
  • 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.
  • friend with benefits — (used as a euphemism) a friend with whom one has sex without a romantic relationship or commitment.
  • 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.
  • get one's teeth into — to become engrossed in
  • gingival hyperplasia — Gingival hyperplasia is abnormal enlargement of the gums.
  • 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.
  • give someone the eye — the organ of sight, in vertebrates typically one of a pair of spherical bodies contained in an orbit of the skull and in humans appearing externally as a dense, white, curved membrane, or sclera, surrounding a circular, colored portion, or iris, that is covered by a clear, curved membrane, or cornea, and in the center of which is an opening, or pupil, through which light passes to the retina.
  • 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.
  • green light district — an area in which prostitution is officially tolerated
  • hang up one's spikes — to retire, as from a professional sport
  • 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.
  • hardware handshaking — (communications)   A technique for regulating the flow of data across an interface by means of signals carried on separate wires. A common example is the RTS (Request to Send) and CTS (Clear to Send) signals on an EIA-232 serial line. The alternative, software handshaking, uses two special characters inserted into the data stream to carry the same information.
  • harmonic minor scale — minor scale (def 1).
  • harmonic progression — a series of numbers the reciprocals of which are in arithmetic progression.
  • have had one's chips — to be defeated, condemned to die, killed, etc
  • hawaii-standard-time — Alaska-Hawaii time.
  • hazard warning lamps — Hazard warning lamps are flashing lamps on each corner of a vehicle that are used to show the position of the vehicle if there has been a breakdown or an accident.
  • 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.
  • heston and isleworth — a former borough, now part of Hounslow, in SE England, near London.
  • high-density housing — housing with a higher population density than the average, typically blocks of flats, and tower blocks
  • hold one's head high — to conduct oneself in a proud and confident manner
  • holder in due course — a person who has received a negotiable instrument in good faith and without notice that it is overdue, that there is any prior claim, or that there is a defect in the title of the person who negotiated it.
  • holy water sprinkler — morning star (def 2).
  • homo sapiens sapiens — the subspecies of the genus Homo in which modern humans are classified.
  • horizontal scan rate — (hardware)   (HSR) The measure of how many scan lines of pixels a monitor can display in one second, expressed in kHz (generally somewhere between 20 and 100 kHz). The HSR is controlled by the horizontal sync signal generated by the video controller, but is limited by the speed with which the monitor can scan the electron beam horizontally across the screen and then return it to the beginning of the next line.
  • horizontally opposed — A horizontally opposed engine has the cylinders set horizontally at either side of the crankshaft.
  • hospitality industry — the hotel and accommodation industry
  • house of assignation — a brothel.
  • household appliances — devices or machines, usually electrical, that are in your home and which you use to do jobs such as cleaning or cooking
  • houses of parliament — In Britain, the Houses of Parliament are the British parliament, which consists of two parts, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The buildings where the British parliament does its work are also called the Houses of Parliament.
  • how about something? — what is your wish, opinion, or information concerning something (or someone)?
  • human interest story — news item about people's lives
  • human papillomavirus — any of a group of papillomaviruses causing cutaneous warts and lesions of the oral, anal, and genital mucous membranes in human beings
  • human parvovirus b19 — Pathology. a mild infection, most often seen in children or young adults, caused by a small virus ((the human parvovirus B19)) and marked by a blotchy rash on the cheeks, arms, and legs.
  • human-interest story — a story or report, as in a newspaper or on a newscast, designed to engage attention and sympathy by enabling one to identify readily with the people, problems, and situations described.
  • hungarian bromegrass — a pasture grass, Bromus inermis, native to Europe, having smooth blades.
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