21-letter words containing o, a, t, h, s
- orthophosphorous acid — a white to yellowish, crystalline, hygroscopic, water-soluble solid, H 3 PO 3 , used chiefly in the synthesis of phosphites.
- otorhinolaryngologist — (medicine) Doctor specializing in otorhinolaryngology, the study of ear, nose, and throat.
- paper over the cracks — conceal flaws or problems
- pass the hat (around) — In British English, if you pass the hat around, you collect money from a group of people, for example in order to give someone a present. In American English, you just say pass the hat.
- path coverage testing — (testing) Testing a program by examining which lines of executable code are visited (as in code coverage testing) and also the ways of getting to each line of code and the subsequent sequence of execution. Path coverage testing is the most comprehensive type of testing that a test suite can provide. It can find more bugs, especially those that are caused by data coupling. However, path coverage is hard and usually only used for small and/or critical sections of code.
- pathfinder prospectus — a prospectus regarding the flotation of a new company that contains only sufficient details to test the market reaction
- peephole optimisation — (compiler) A kind of low-level code optimisation that considers only a few adjacent machine code instructions at a time and looks for certain combinations which can be replaced with more efficient sequences. E.g. ADD R0, #1 ADD R0, #1 (add one to register R0) could be replaced by ADD R0, #2 as long as there were no jumps to the second instruction.
- physical anthropology — the branch of anthropology dealing with the evolutionary changes in human anatomy and physiology, using mensurational and descriptive techniques.
- populist shop steward — a shop steward who operates in a delegate role, putting the immediate interests of his members before union principles and policies
- potassium diphosphate — any of the three orthophosphates of potassium ((potassium monophosphate) (K 2 HPO 4), (potassium diphosphate) (KH 2 PO 4), and (tripotassium phosphate) (K 3 PO 4) )
- potassium thiocyanate — a colorless, crystalline, hygroscopic, water-soluble solid, KSCN, used chiefly in the manufacture of chemicals, dyes, and drugs.
- profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service
- protestant work ethic — work ethic.
- pseudohermaphroditism — an individual having internal reproductive organs of one sex and external sexual characteristics resembling those of the other sex or being ambiguous in nature. Compare hermaphrodite (def 1).
- psychomotor agitation — agitation (def 3).
- psychomotor-agitation — the act or process of agitating; state of being agitated: She left in great agitation.
- psychopathic disorder — (in England, according to the Mental Health Act 1983) a persistent disorder or disability of mind which results in abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct on the part of the person concerned
- psychopharmacotherapy — the use of psychoactive drugs in the symptomatic treatment or control of mental disorders or psychiatric disease.
- pull sth out of a hat — To pull something out of the hat means to do something unexpected which helps you to succeed, often when you are failing.
- push the panic button — an alarm button for use in an emergency, as to summon help.
- ralph roister doister — a play (1553?) by Nicholas Udall: the earliest known English comedy.
- rap over the knuckles — to reprimand
- rayleigh distribution — (mathematics) A curve that yields a good approximation to the actual labour curves on software projects.
- reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- reverse polish syntax — postfix notation
- ring-around-the-rosey — a children's game in which the players sing while going around in a circle and squat when the lyrics “all fall down” are sung.
- rolling in the aisles — (of an audience) overcome with laughter
- rutherford scattering — the scattering of an alpha particle through a large angle with respect to the original direction of motion of the particle, caused by an atom (Rutherford atom) with most of the mass and all of the positive electric charge concentrated at a center or nucleus.
- s-k reduction machine — An abstract machine defined by Professor David Turner to evaluate combinator expressions represented as binary graphs. Named after the two basic combinators, S and K.
- safe in the knowledge — If you do something safe in the knowledge that something else is the case, you do the first thing confidently because you are sure of the second thing.
- saint anthony's cross — tau cross.
- salam-weinberg theory — the electroweak theory.
- satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
- schema definition set — (SDS) Something in Portable Common Tool Environment.
- schlieren photography — a type of photography which records schlieren
- scholastic philosophy — the system of philosophy, theology, and teaching that dominated medieval western Europe and was based on the writings of the Church Fathers and (from the 12th century) Aristotle, the Greek philosopher (384–322 bc)
- scorched earth policy — a military practice of devastating the property and agriculture of an area before abandoning it to an advancing enemy.
- scorched-earth policy — a military practice of devastating the property and agriculture of an area before abandoning it to an advancing enemy.
- second-hand endowment — A second-hand endowment is a traditional with-profits endowment policy that has been sold to a new owner part way through its term.
- secure hash algorithm —
- self-characterization — portrayal; description: the actor's characterization of a politician.
- settle someone's hash — a dish of diced or chopped meat and often vegetables, as of leftover corned beef or veal and potatoes, sautéed in a frying pan or of meat, potatoes, and carrots cooked together in gravy.
- sheppard's correction — a method of correcting the bias in standard deviations and higher moments of distributions that arises from grouping values of the variable.
- short message service — (messaging) (SMS) A message service offered by the GSM digital mobile telephone system. Using SMS, a short alphanumeric message (160 alphanumeric characters) can be sent to a mobile phone to be displayed there, much like in an alphanumeric pager system. The message is buffered by the GSM network until the phone becomes active.
- sick to one's stomach — afflicted with ill health or disease; ailing.
- sieve of eratosthenes — a method of obtaining prime numbers by sifting out the composite numbers from the set of natural numbers so that only prime numbers remain.
- silicon tetrachloride — a colorless, fuming liquid, SiCl 4 , used chiefly for making smoke screens and various derivatives of silicon.
- single spanish burton — a tackle having a runner as well as the fall supporting the load, giving a mechanical advantage of three, neglecting friction.
- skeleton at the feast — a person or event that brings gloom or sadness to an occasion of joy or celebration
- snappy video snapshot — (hardware) (registered trademark) A frame grabber for the IBM PC designed and marketed by Play, Inc..