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17-letter words containing o, f, s, h

  • pacific northwest — the region of North America lying north of the Columbia River and west of the Rockies
  • 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.
  • pincushion flower — scabious2 (def 1).
  • plains of abraham — a high plain adjoining the city of Quebec, Canada: battlefield where the English under Wolfe defeated the French under Montcalm in 1759.
  • play with oneself — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
  • point of purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
  • point-of-purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
  • preferential shop — a shop in which union members are preferred, usually by agreement of an employer with a union.
  • proof of purchase — a document, such as a receipt, etc, that proves that you have purchased or bought something
  • proof-of-purchase — a sales slip, label, box top, or other item associated with a product that is presentable as evidence of actual purchase, as for claiming a refund or rebate.
  • rough puff pastry — a rich flaky pastry made with butter and used for pie-crusts, flans, etc
  • rush one's fences — to proceed with precipitate haste
  • rush-hour traffic — the large number of vehicles that move along roads, travelling to or from work at the beginning and end of the working day
  • russian wolfhound — borzoi.
  • salt of the earth — an individual or group considered as representative of the best or noblest elements of society.
  • sawed-off shotgun — rifle with a short barrel
  • scarlet firethorn — a Eurasian evergreen, thorny shrub, Pyracantha coccinea, of the rose family, having white, hairy flower clusters and bright red berries.
  • 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.
  • scientific theory — a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation: the scientific theory of evolution.
  • seat-of-the-pants — using or based on experience, instinct, or guesswork: a seat-of-the-pants management style.
  • self-annihilation — self-destruction; suicide.
  • shoot one's cuffs — to expose one's shirt cuffs beyond the coat sleeves
  • sign of the cross — a movement of the hand to indicate a cross, as from forehead to breast and left shoulder to right or, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, from right shoulder to left.
  • significant other — Sociology. a person, as a parent or peer, who has great influence on one's behavior and self-esteem.
  • sister of charity — a member of one of several congregations of sisters founded in 1634 by St. Vincent de Paul.
  • sixty-fourth note — a note having one sixty-fourth of the time value of a whole note; hemidemisemiquaver.
  • sixty-fourth rest — a rest equal in time value to a sixty-fourth note.
  • skin of our teeth — a play (1942) by Thornton Wilder.
  • south farmingdale — a town on central Long Island, in SE New York.
  • south frigid zone — the part of the earth's surface between the Antarctic Circle and the South Pole.
  • south west africa — a former name of Namibia.
  • south-west africa — a former name of Namibia.
  • southern studfish — See under studfish.
  • spaghettification — the theoretical stretching of an object as it encounters extreme differences in gravitational forces, especially those associated with a black hole.
  • spoonbill catfish — flathead catfish.
  • star of bethlehem — the star that is supposed to have appeared above Bethlehem at the birth of Christ
  • star-of-bethlehem — any of several plants belonging to the genus Ornithogalum, of the lily family, having grasslike leaves and clusters of white flowers.
  • sulfonyl chloride — a colorless liquid, SO 2 Cl 2 , having a very pungent odor and corrosive to the skin and mucous membranes: used as a chlorinating or sulfonating agent.
  • sulfurated potash — a yellowish-brown mixture consisting mainly of potassium polysulfides and potassium thiosulfate, used in treating mange.
  • teaching software — computer software for use in providing online education
  • the age of reason — the 18th century in W Europe
  • the bag of tricks — every device; everything
  • the carboniferous — the Carboniferous period or rock system
  • the depths of sth — the deepest, most intense, or most severe part
  • the facts of life — the details of sexual behaviour and reproduction, esp as told to children
  • the first line of — If you refer to a method as the first line of, for example, defence or treatment, you mean that it is the first or most important method to be used in dealing with a problem.
  • the life and soul — a person regarded as the main source of merriment and liveliness
  • the right side of — in favour with
  • the sound of mull — the water that separates the island of Mull from the mainland of Scotland
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