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14-letter words containing o, r, k, h

  • knotty rhatany — See under rhatany (def 1).
  • know the ropes — to perceive or understand as fact or truth; to apprehend clearly and with certainty: I know the situation fully.
  • know the score — understand the situation
  • krolewska huta — former name of Chorzów.
  • leukodystrophy — (medicine) Any of a group of disorders characterized by progressive degeneration of the white matter of the brain, caused by imperfect growth or development of the myelin sheath that acts as an insulator around nerve fibres.
  • mother-fucking — a mean, despicable, or vicious person.
  • nizhnevartovsk — a city in W central Russia, an oil and gas center on the Ob River.
  • ockham's razor — Occam's razor.
  • on tenterhooks — one of the hooks or bent nails that hold cloth stretched on a tenter.
  • on the knocker — promptly; at once
  • out of the ark — very old; out of date
  • paddock-basher — a vehicle suited to driving on rough terrain
  • phosphate rock — phosphorite.
  • pocket borough — (before the Reform Bill of 1832) any English borough whose representatives in Parliament were controlled by an individual or family.
  • poikilothermal — cold-blooded (def 1 .) (opposed to homoiothermal).
  • poikilothermia — Medicine/Medical. the inability to regulate core body temperature (as by sweating to cool off or by putting on clothes to warm up), found especially in some spinal cord injury patients and in patients under general anesthesia.
  • poikilothermic — cold-blooded (def 1 .) (opposed to homoiothermal).
  • rathke's pouch — an invagination of stomodeal ectoderm developing into the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland.
  • reckon without — If you say that you had reckoned without something, you mean that you had not expected it and so were not prepared for it.
  • red chokeberry — See under chokeberry (def 1).
  • rock mechanics — the study of the mechanical behaviour of rocks, esp their strength, elasticity, permeability, porosity, density, and reaction to stress
  • rocking rhythm — a rhythmic pattern created by a succession of metrical feet each of which consists of one accented syllable between two unaccented ones.
  • rough as sacks — uncouth
  • ruhmkorff coil — induction coil.
  • schlockmeister — a person who deals in or sells inferior or worthless goods; junk dealer.
  • scratch monkey — (humour)   As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
  • sheepback rock — roche moutonnée.
  • shock absorber — a device for damping sudden and rapid motion, as the recoil of a spring-mounted object from shock.
  • shooting brake — station wagon.
  • smoker's cough — a chronic cough caused by smoking.
  • squeak through — to succeed, get through, survive, etc. by a narrow margin or with difficulty
  • stalking horse — If you describe a person or thing as a stalking horse, you mean that it is being used to obtain a temporary advantage so that someone can get what they really want.
  • stalking-horse — a horse, or a figure of a horse, behind which a hunter hides in stalking game.
  • starch blocker — a substance ingested in the belief that it inhibits the body's ability to metabolize starch and thereby promotes weight loss: declared illegal in the U.S. by the FDA.
  • stick together — be united
  • straight poker — one of the original forms of poker in which players are dealt five cards face down, upon which they bet and then have the showdown without drawing any cards.
  • strike through — cross out
  • surgical shock — a state of shock that can occur during or after surgery
  • tailor's chalk — hardened chalk or soapstone used to make temporary guide marks on a garment that is being altered.
  • take the floor — that part of a room, hallway, or the like, that forms its lower enclosing surface and upon which one walks.
  • the job market — the people who are looking for work and the jobs available for them to do
  • the silk route — an ancient trade route that linked Asia and the countries of the Mediterranean and was followed by Marco Polo when he travelled to Cathay
  • throwing stick — a short, straight or curved stick, flat or cylindrical in form, often having a hand grip, and used generally in preliterate societies as a hunting weapon to throw at birds and small game.
  • to strike home — If something that is thrown or fired strikes home, it reaches its target.
  • turkish angora — a long-haired breed of cat, similar to the Persian
  • turkish coffee — a strong, usually sweetened coffee, made by boiling the pulverized coffee beans.
  • up to the mark — acceptably good
  • volksdeutscher — a member of the German people, especially one of a community having its home outside of Germany, usually in central or eastern Europe.
  • walking shorts — medium to long shorts, often cut fuller than Bermuda shorts and used for walking or leisure activity.
  • west yorkshire — a metropolitan county in N England. 787 sq. mi. (2039 sq. km).
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