18-letter words containing o, n, h, a
- grasshopper engine — a steam engine having a piston attached to one end of a beam that is hinged to an upright at the other end, the connecting rod being suspended from near the center of the beam.
- green-backed heron — a small, American heron, Butorides striatus, having glossy green wings.
- greenhouse warming — the increase in the mean temperature of the earth attributed to the greenhouse effect
- ha ha only serious — (SF fandom, originally as mutation of HHOK, "Ha Ha Only Kidding") A phrase (often seen abbreviated as HHOS) that aptly captures the flavour of much hacker discourse. Applied especially to parodies, absurdities, and ironic jokes that are both intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of truth, or truths that are constructed on in-joke and self-parody. The Jargon File contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in both form and content. Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is often perceived as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider, a wannabee, or in larval stage. For further enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master. See also AI koan.
- half-open interval — a set of numbers between two given numbers but including only one endpoint.
- hamilton's problem — Hamiltonian problem
- hand it to someone — to give credit to someone
- happy as a sandboy — very happy; high-spirited
- harnessed antelope — any African antelope of the genus Tragelaphus, especially the bushbuck, having the body marked with white stripes and spots that resemble a harness, and, in the male, long, gently spiraling horns.
- hash house slinger — a person who serves in a cheap cafe
- haulage contractor — a person or firm that transports goods by lorry
- have a thing about — If you have a thing about someone or something, you have very strong feelings about them.
- have eyes only for — the organ of sight, in vertebrates typically one of a pair of spherical bodies contained in an orbit of the skull and in humans appearing externally as a dense, white, curved membrane, or sclera, surrounding a circular, colored portion, or iris, that is covered by a clear, curved membrane, or cornea, and in the center of which is an opening, or pupil, through which light passes to the retina.
- have money to burn — to have more money than one needs, so that some can be spent foolishly
- have no hesitation — If you say that you have no hesitation in doing something, you are emphasizing that you will do it immediately or willingly because you are certain that it is the right thing to do.
- have on one's back — to be burdened with
- have one's ears on — the organ of hearing and equilibrium in vertebrates, in humans consisting of an external ear that gathers sound vibrations, a middle ear in which the vibrations resonate against the tympanic membrane, and a fluid-filled internal ear that maintains balance and that conducts the tympanic vibrations to the auditory nerve, which transmits them as impulses to the brain.
- have one's moments — If you say that someone or something has their moments, you are indicating that there are times when they are successful or interesting, but that this does not happen very often.
- head and shoulders — If you say that someone or something stands head and shoulders above other people or things, you mean that they are a lot better than them.
- heart-rate monitor — a machine that monitors or records a person's heart rate
- hearts and flowers — maudlin sentimentality: The play is a period piece, full of innocence abused and hearts and flowers.
- heat of combustion — the heat evolved when one mole of a substance is burnt in oxygen at constant volume
- hebdomadal council — the governing council or senate of Oxford University
- heimlich manoeuvre — a technique in first aid to dislodge a foreign body in a person's windpipe by applying sudden upward pressure on the upper abdomen
- helicopter station — a place where helicopters are kept in readiness for use
- hepatosplenomegaly — Enlargement of both the liver and spleen.
- heptadecanoic acid — a colourless crystalline water-insoluble carboxylic acid used in organic synthesis. Formula: CH3(CH2)15COOH
- herring bone weave — a pattern consisting of adjoining vertical rows of slanting lines, any two contiguous lines forming either a V or an inverted V , used in masonry, textiles, embroidery, etc.
- hexachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of forty-two isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing six chlorine atoms.
- highlight halftone — dropout (def 7).
- historical fiction — the genre of literature, film, etc., comprising narratives that take place in the past and are characterized chiefly by an imaginative reconstruction of historical events and personages.
- historical present — the present tense used in narrating a past event as if happening at the time of narration.
- hold a reservation — If a hotel holds a reservation, it keeps a room for someone, and does not give it to someone else.
- hold up one's head — to be unashamed
- home entertainment — the aggregate of appliances, as stero systems, television, videocassette recorders, or computers, used for diversion in the home.
- homelands movement — the programme to resettle native Australians on their tribal lands
- honeysuckle family — the plant family Caprifoliaceae, typified by shrubs and woody vines having opposite leaves, clusters of usually flaring, narrow, tubular flowers, and various types of fruit, and including the elder, honeysuckle, snowberry, twinflower, and viburnum.
- honorable ordinary — any of the ordinaries believed to be among those that are oldest or that were the source of the other ordinaries, as the chief, pale, fess, bend, chevron, cross, and saltire.
- honorary secretary — a unpaid person who is one of the managers of an organization
- honour moderations — (at Oxford University) the first public examination, in which candidates are placed into one of three classes of honours
- honourable mention — If something that you do in a competition is given an honourable mention, it receives special praise from the judges although it does not actually win a prize.
- horizontal tasting — a tasting of wines from the same year but from different vineyards, producers, etc.
- hot-water cylinder — a vertical cylindrical tank for storing hot water, esp an insulated one made of copper used in a domestic hot-water system
- human rights group — a group that campaigns for human rights
- hungarian notation — (language, convention) A linguistic convention requiring one or more letters to be added to the start of variable names to denote scope and/or type. Hungarian Notation is mainly confined to Microsoft Windows programming environments, such as Microsoft C, C++ and Visual Basic. It was originally devised by Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian, who was a senior programmer at Microsoft for many years. He disliked the way that names in C programs gave no clue as to the type, leading to frequent programmer errors. According to legend, fellow programmers at Microsoft, on seeing the convoluted, vowel-less variable names produced by his scheme, said, "This might as well be in Greek - or even Hungarian!". They made up the name "Hungarian notation" (possibly with "reverse Polish notation" in mind). Hungarian Notation is not really necessary when using a modern strongly-typed language as the compiler warns the programmer if a variable of one type is used as if it were another type. It is less useful in object-oriented programming languages such as C++, where many variables are going to be instances of classes and so begin with "obj". In addition, variable names are essentially only comments, and thus are just as susceptible to becoming out-of-date and incorrect as any other comment. For example, if a signed short int becomes an unsigned long int, the variable name, and every use of it, should be changed to reflect its new type. A variable's name should describe the values it holds. Type and scope are aspects of this, but Hungarian Notation overemphasises their importance by allocating so much of the start of the name to them. Furthermore, type and scope information can be found from the variable's declaration. Ironically, this is particularly easy in the development environments in which Hungarian Notation is typically used.
- hungry programmers — (body) A group of programmers producing free software.
- huntington station — a town on W Long Island, in SE New York.
- hydrocinnamic acid — a white crystalline compound, C 9 H 10 O 2 , with a floral odor, used in perfumes and flavoring.
- hydrofluorocarbons — Plural form of hydrofluorocarbon.
- hydroxynaphthalene — naphthol.