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20-letter words containing n, a, m, h

  • chromatic aberration — a defect in a lens system in which different wavelengths of light are focused at different distances because they are refracted through different angles. It produces a blurred image with coloured fringes
  • chromatic adaptation — the alteration by photosynthesizing organisms of the proportions of their photosynthetic pigments in response to the intensity and colour of the available light, as shown by algae in the littoral zone, which change from green to red as the zone is descended
  • chronic inflammation — persistent infection or swelling
  • clinical thermometer — a finely calibrated thermometer for determining the temperature of the body, usually placed under the tongue, in the armpit, or in the rectum
  • clothes manufacturer — a business concern that manufactures clothes
  • cold-weather payment — (in Britain) a payment made by the government to people on low incomes when the temperature falls below a certain level for a specific number of days
  • combination sandwich — a big sandwich with a mixed filling
  • come out in the wash — If you say that something will come out in the wash, you mean that people will eventually find out the truth about it.
  • common yellow throat — a widely distributed wood warbler, Geothlypis trichas, of North America and Mexico, in the male having a black facial mask and yellow underparts.
  • commonwealth hackish — (jargon)   Hacker jargon as spoken outside the US, especially in the British Commonwealth. It is reported that Commonwealth speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like "char" and "soc", etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/. Dots in newsgroup names (especially two-component names) tend to be pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot wib'l/ rather than /sohsh wib'l/). The prefix meta may be pronounced /mee't*/; similarly, Greek letter beta is usually /bee't*/, zeta is usually /zee't*/, and so forth. Preferred metasyntactic variables include blurgle, "eek", "ook", "frodo", and "bilbo"; "wibble", "wobble", and in emergencies "wubble"; "banana", "tom", "dick", "harry", "wombat", "frog", fish, and so on and on (see foo). Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes "-o-rama", "frenzy" (as in feeding frenzy), and "city" (examples: "barf city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!"). Finally, note that the American terms "parens", "brackets", and "braces" for (), [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers "brackets", "square brackets", and "curly brackets". Also, the use of "pling" for bang is common outside the United States. See also attoparsec, calculator, chemist, console jockey, fish, go-faster stripes, grunge, hakspek, heavy metal, leaky heap, lord high fixer, loose bytes, muddie, nadger, noddy, psychedelicware, plingnet, raster blaster, RTBM, seggie, spod, sun lounge, terminal junkie, tick-list features, weeble, weasel, YABA, and notes or definitions under Bad Thing, barf, bum, chase pointers, cosmic rays, crippleware, crunch, dodgy, gonk, hamster, hardwarily, mess-dos, nibble, proglet, root, SEX, tweak and xyzzy.
  • communication theory — information theory.
  • contact metamorphism — localized metamorphism resulting from the heat of an igneous intrusion.
  • crime and punishment — a novel (1866) by Feodor Dostoevsky.
  • cross someone's path — to meet or thwart someone
  • daylight saving time — Daylight Saving Time is a period of time in the summer when the clocks are set one hour forward, so that people can have extra light in the evening.
  • daylight-saving time — the civil time observed when daylight saving is adopted in a country or community.
  • department of health — government ministry for health matters
  • diammonium phosphate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble compound, (NH 4) 2 HPO 4 , used as fertilizer, in fire extinguishers, etc.
  • diamond in the rough — a diamond in its natural state
  • dimethylanthranilate — a colorless or pale-yellow liquid, C 9 H 11 NO 2 , having a grape odor: used chiefly in perfumes, flavorings, and drugs.
  • distress merchandise — goods sold below the prevailing price in order to raise cash quickly or to meet some other financial emergency.
  • domestic heating oil — a liquid petroleum product used to fuel residential building furnaces or boilers
  • early modern english — the English language represented in printed documents of the period starting with Caxton (1476) and ending with Dryden (1700).
  • ecumenical patriarch — the patriarch of Constantinople, regarded as the highest dignitary of the Greek Orthodox Church.
  • electroencephalogram — A test or record of brain activity produced by electroencephalography.
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • flavour of the month — If you think that something or someone is very popular at a particular time, you can say that they are flavour of the month.
  • football hooliganism — the actions or behaviour of a football hooligan
  • force someone's hand — to force someone to act
  • fourteenth amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, defining national citizenship and forbidding the states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other persons.
  • frame check sequence — (communications)   (FCS) The extra characters added to a frame for error detection and correction(?). FCS is used in X.25, HDLC, Frame Relay, and other data link layer protocols.
  • friar minor capuchin — capuchin (def 4).
  • fundamental research — research carried out to deepen understanding of the fundamental or basic principles of something
  • 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 to someone's head — to confuse, excite, or intoxicate someone
  • goldenhar's syndrome — a congenital disorder in which one side of the face is malformed, often with an enlargement of one side of the mouth. There may also be hearing loss, curvature of the spine, and mild retardation
  • hampton court palace — a royal palace in Hampton, London, built in 1515 by Cardinal Wolsey
  • harmonic minor scale — minor scale (def 1).
  • harmonic progression — a series of numbers the reciprocals of which are in arithmetic progression.
  • have an itching palm — to desire money greedily
  • have come a long way — If you say that someone or something has come a long way, you mean that they have developed, progressed, or become very successful.
  • hawaii-standard-time — Alaska-Hawaii time.
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