17-letter words containing m, s, t, h
- organic chemistry — the branch of chemistry, originally limited to substances found only in living organisms, dealing with the compounds of carbon.
- out of harm's way — If someone or something is out of harm's way, they are in a safe place away from danger or from the possibility of being damaged.
- overhead camshaft — a camshaft in an automotive engine that is located in the cylinder head over the engine block rather than in the block. Abbreviation: OHC.
- overstep the mark — If someone oversteps the mark, they behave in a way that is considered unacceptable.
- paleobiochemistry — the study of biochemical processes that occurred in fossil life forms.
- pashmina politics — the adoption of political policies immediately after they have gone out of fashion
- pastoral symphony — the Symphony No. 6 in F major (1807–08) by Ludwig van Beethoven.
- 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.
- phlebotomus fever — sandfly fever.
- photo-composition — any method of composition using photography, as composition by means of a photocomposer.
- photoluminescence — luminescence induced by the absorption of infrared radiation, visible light, or ultraviolet radiation.
- pseudo-humanistic — a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
- psychometric test — a test designed to test a person's mental state, personality and thought processes
- quantum chemistry — the application of quantum mechanics to the study of chemical phenomena.
- quantum mechanics — a theory of the mechanics of atoms, molecules, and other physical systems that are subject to the uncertainty principle. Abbreviation: QM.
- racial harassment — persecution on the basis of race
- rheumatic disease — any of a group of diseases of the connective tissue, of uncertain causes, including rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and rheumatic fever
- 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)
- rich site summary — (web, standard) (RSS, blog, feed) A family of standard web document types containing regularly updated, short articles or news items. RSS documents (generally called "RSS feeds", "news feeds" or just "feeds") can be read with an RSS reader like BottomFeeder or Feedly. These are sometimes called "aggregators" because they combine multiple RSS feeds which the user can browse as a single list. The RSS reader tracks which articles the use has read, and is typically set to show only new articles, hence the idea of a "feed" or flow of new items. Most RSS feeds are based on RDF. RDF is a structured document format for describing textual resources such as news articles available on the web. RSS originally stood for "RDF Site Summary" as it was designed to provide short descriptions of (changes to) a website. Because it provides a standard way to deliver, or "syndicate", news or updates from one site to another, RSS is sometimes expanded as "Really Simple Syndication". It is closely associated with blogs, most of which provide an RSS feed of articles.
- 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
- schematic capture — The process of entering the logical design of an electronic circuit into a CAE system by creating a schematic representation of components and interconnections.
- scheme repository — A collection of free Scheme programs.
- schmidt telescope — a wide-angle reflecting telescope used primarily for astronomical photography, in which spherical aberration and coma are reduced to a minimum by means of a spherical mirror with a corrector plate near its focus.
- scientific method — a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.
- see someone right — to ensure fair treatment of (someone)
- semidetached mode — (programming) A term used by COCOMO to describe a project development somewhere between organic and embedded. The team members have a mixture of experienced and inexperienced personnel. The software to be developed has some characteristics of both organic and embedded modes. Semidetached software can be as large as 300K DSIs.
- semisophisticated — somewhat sophisticated.
- september weather — weather characteristic of the month of September, esp in being unpredictable as summer is ending and autumn is beginning
- settlement houses — the act or state of settling or the state of being settled.
- seventh amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing trial by jury.
- sexual harassment — unwelcome sexual advances made by an employer or superior, especially when compliance is made a condition of continued employment or advancement.
- short-term memory — information retained in the brain and retrievable from it over a brief span of time (contrasted with long-term memory).
- shorter catechism — one of the two catechisms established by the Westminster Assembly in 1647, used chiefly in Presbyterian churches.
- shower attachment — a device fixed to taps to make a shower
- shuttle diplomacy — diplomatic negotiations carried out by a mediator who travels back and forth between the negotiating parties.
- simulated leather — fake leather that is an imitation of real leather and is usually made from a cheaper material
- sixth commandment — “Thou shalt not kill”: sixth of the Ten Commandments.
- smoothing circuit — a circuit used to remove ripple from the output of a direct current power supply
- snatch one's time — to leave a job, taking whatever pay is due
- sodium bichromate — a red or orange crystalline, water-soluble solid, Na 2 Cr 2 O 7 ⋅2H 2 O, used as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of dyes and inks, as a corrosion inhibitor, a mordant, a laboratory reagent, in the tanning of leather, and in electroplating.
- sodium dichromate — a red or orange crystalline, water-soluble solid, Na 2 Cr 2 O 7 ⋅2H 2 O, used as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of dyes and inks, as a corrosion inhibitor, a mordant, a laboratory reagent, in the tanning of leather, and in electroplating.
- 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
- specific humidity — the ratio of the mass of water vapor in air to the total mass of the mixture of air and water vapor.
- spectrophotometer — an instrument for making photometric comparisons between parts of spectra.
- spectrophotometry — an instrument for making photometric comparisons between parts of spectra.
- speech impediment — speaking disorder
- spore mother cell — a cell from which a spore is produced