12-letter words containing m, e, p, h
- impoverishes — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of impoverish.
- in the dumps — a depressed state of mind (usually preceded by in the): to be in the dumps over money problems.
- james harper — James, 1795–1869, and his brothers John, 1797–1875, (Joseph) Wesley, 1801–70, and Fletcher, 1806–77, U.S. printers and publishers.
- jump shooter — a player skilled at jump shots.
- jump the gun — a weapon consisting of a metal tube, with mechanical attachments, from which projectiles are shot by the force of an explosive; a piece of ordnance.
- jumping hare — springhare.
- ken thompson — (person) The principal inventor of the Unix operating system and author of the B language, the predecessor of C. In the early days Ken used to hand-cut Unix distribution tapes, often with a note that read "Love, ken". Old-timers still use his first name (sometimes uncapitalised, because it's a login name and mail address) in third-person reference; it is widely understood (on Usenet in particular) that without a last name "Ken" refers only to Ken Thompson. Similarly, Dennis without last name means Dennis Ritchie (and he is often known as dmr). Ken was first hired to work on the Multics project, which was a huge production with many people working on it. Multics was supposed to support hundreds of on-line logins but could barely handle three. In 1969, when Bell Labs withdrew from the project, Ken got fed up with Multics and went off to write his own operating system. People said "well, if zillions of people wrote Multics, then an OS written by one guy must be Unix!". There was some joking about eunichs as well. Ken's wife Bonnie and son Corey (then 18 months old) went to visit family in San Diego. Ken spent one week each on the kernel, file system, etc., and finished UNIX in one month along with developing SPACEWAR (or was it "Space Travel"?). See also back door, brute force, demigod, wumpus.
- lamellaphone — Alt form lamellophone.
- lamellophone — (musical instruments) Any of several musical instruments in which the sound is produced by plucking a series of thin lamellaa attached to a sounding board.
- lamp chimney — a glass tube that surrounds the wick in an oil lamp
- lamplighters — Plural form of lamplighter.
- lamprophyres — Plural form of lamprophyre.
- leopard moth — a moth, Zeuzera pyrina, having white wings spotted with black and larvae that bore into the wood of various trees and shrubs.
- lisp machine — 1. (architecture) Any machine (whether notional or actual) whose instruction set is Lisp. 2. (hardware, operating system) A line of workstations made by Symbolics, Inc. from the mid-1970s (having grown out of the MIT AI Lab) to late 1980s. All system code for Symbolics Lisp Machines was written in Lisp Machine Lisp. Symbolics Lisp Machines were also notable for having had space-cadet keyboards.
- lithospermum — any annual or perennial herbs and small shrubs of the genus lithospermum, of the borage family, native to Europe, N America, and northern Asia, and having white, blue, or yellow flowers
- lymph system — Anatomy, Zoology. the system by which lymph is returned from the cells to the blood and by which white blood cells are produced in response to inflammation or presence of antigens; in mammals, the system includes the lymph glands, vessels and sinuses through which lymph is carried, and lymphoid tissues, as bone marrow and the thymus.
- lymphadenoma — an enlarged lymph node.
- machine shop — a workshop in which metal and other substances are cut, shaped, etc., by machine tools.
- macrocephaly — Cephalometry. being or having a head with a large cranial capacity.
- magnetograph — a recording magnetometer, used especially for recording variations in the earth's magnetic field.
- magnotherapy — Any of several alternative medicine therapies using magnetism.
- make whoopee — make whoopee, to engage in uproarious merrymaking.
- mapplethorpe — Robert, 1946–89, U.S. photographer.
- marimbaphone — (obsolete, music) A kind of percussion idiophone, like the marimba but with steel keys instead of wood, developed in early 20th century United States.
- massotherapy — treatment by massage.
- mastigophore — Any flagellate of the phylum Mastigophora.
- mediatorship — the position of a mediator
- meet up with — see socially
- megacephalic — macrocephalic.
- meganthropus — a proposed genus of extinct, late lower Pleistocene primates based on two large lower jaws found in Java, and believed to be either Australopithecine or human.
- melanophores — Plural form of melanophore.
- melliphagous — (of an animal) feeding on honey
- memphremagog — Lake, a lake on the boundary between the U.S. and Canada, between N Vermont and S Quebec. 30 miles (48 km) long.
- mephibosheth — a son of Jonathan, and the grandson of Saul. II Sam 4:4.
- mesocephalic — having a head with a cephalic index between that of dolichocephaly and brachycephaly.
- mesomorphous — mesomorphic
- metal polish — cleaning fluid designed to clean, polish or add shine to metal
- metallograph — a microscope for observing the microstructure of metals.
- metallophone — any musical instrument consisting of a graduated series of metal bars that may either be struck by hammers operated manually or played with a keyboard.
- metamorphism — Geology. a change in the structure or constitution of a rock due to natural agencies, as pressure and heat, especially when the rock becomes harder and more completely crystalline.
- metamorphist — a member of a group of 16th century Christians who believed that the humanly body of Jesus Christ metamorphosed into God during the Ascension
- metamorphize — (transitive) To transform or change; metamorphose.
- metamorphose — to change the form or nature of; transform.
- metamorphous — metamorphic.
- metaphorical — a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.”. Compare mixed metaphor, simile (def 1).
- metaphrasing — Present participle of metaphrase.
- metaphrastic — a person who translates or changes a literary work from one form to another, as prose into verse.
- metaphysical — pertaining to or of the nature of metaphysics.
- metapsychics — the study of psychic phenomena beyond the limits of ordinary or orthodox psychology
- meteorograph — an instrument for automatically recording various meteorological conditions, as barometric pressure and temperature, at the same time.