17-letter words containing m, a, n, o, t, h
- 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.
- phumiphon aduldet — (Phumiphon Aduldet; Bhumibol Adulyadej) born 1927, king of Thailand since 1946.
- portmanteau morph — a phonological unit of more than one morpheme, as French au to (him) from a to + le masculine article, which realizes a preposition and the definite article; a single morph that is analyzed as representing two underlying morphemes.
- pseudo-humanistic — a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
- put on the market — offer for sale
- rhodope mountains — a mountain range in SE Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula extending along the border between Bulgaria and Greece. Highest peak: Golyam Perelik (Bulgaria), 2191 m (7188 ft)
- roman catholicism — the faith, practice, and system of government of the Roman Catholic Church.
- sawatch mountains — range of the Rocky Mountains, in central Colo.: highest peak, Elbert
- shower attachment — a device fixed to taps to make a shower
- sixth commandment — “Thou shalt not kill”: sixth of the Ten Commandments.
- snatch one's time — to leave a job, taking whatever pay is due
- south farmingdale — a town on central Long Island, in SE New York.
- south sea company — a British joint stock company that traded in South America in the 18th century. The South Sea Company took over the national debt in return for a monopoly of trade with the South Seas, causing feverish speculation in their stocks, and a financial crash in 1720 (the South Sea Bubble)
- southampton water — an inlet of the English Channel in S England
- steamship company — a company which has a fleet of steamships
- sunbury-on-thames — a town in SE England, in N Surrey. Pop: 27 415 (2001)
- support mechanism — any formal system or method of providing support or assistance
- telephone message — a message that is transmitted by telephone
- tenth commandment — “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's”: tenth of the Ten Commandments.
- the fall (of man) — Adam's sin of yielding to temptation in eating the forbidden fruit, and his subsequent loss of grace
- the lower animals — relatively simple or primitive animals and not mammals or vertebrates
- the morning after — the aftereffects of excess, esp a hangover
- the old gentleman — a jocular name for Satan
- thermal diffusion — the separation of constituents, often isotopes, of a fluid under the influence of a temperature gradient.
- thermal expansion — expansion caused by heat
- thermal pollution — a rise in the temperature of rivers or lakes that is injurious to water-dwelling life and is caused by the disposal of heated industrial waste water or water from the cooling towers of nuclear power plants.
- thermal radiation — electromagnetic radiation emitted by all matter above a temperature of absolute zero because of the thermal motion of atomic particles.
- thermocoagulation — the coagulation of tissue by heat-producing high-frequency electric currents, used therapeutically to remove small growths or to create specific lesions in the brain.
- thiopental sodium — a barbiturate, C 11 H 18 N 2 NaO 2 S, used as an anesthetic in surgery and, in psychiatry, for narcoanalysis and to stimulate recall of past events.
- third commandment — “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”: third of the Ten Commandments.
- thomson's gazelle — a medium-sized antelope, Gazella thomsoni, abundant on the grassy steppes and dry bush of the East African plains.
- three-dimensional — having, or seeming to have, the dimension of depth as well as width and height.
- throat microphone — a microphone worn around the throat and actuated by vibrations of the larynx, used when background noise would obscure the sound of speech, as in an airplane cockpit.
- to fan the flames — If someone or something fans the flames of a situation or feeling, usually a bad one, they make it more intense or extreme in some way.
- to have a mind to — If you have a mind to do something, you want, intend, or choose to do it.
- turn on the charm — If someone turns on the charm, they behave in a way that seems very friendly but which you think is insincere, often in order to obtain something or deceive someone.
- welsh nationalism — the political belief that Wales should be independent
- welshman's button — an angler's name for a species of caddis fly, Sericostoma personatum
- white-nationalism — white supremacy.
- woman of the hour — a woman honored by a group.
- youth programming — the creation and scheduling of television programmes specifically aimed at young people