18-letter words containing p, h, o, e, n
- spaghetti junction — an interchange, usually between motorways, in which there are a large number of underpasses and overpasses and intersecting roads used by a large volume of high-speed traffic
- spanish succession — War of thea war (1701-14) between European powers disputing the succession to the Spanish throne
- speech recognition — Computers. the computerized analysis of spoken words in order to identify the speaker, as in security systems, or to respond to voiced commands: the analysis is performed by finding patterns in the spectrum of the incoming sound and comparing them with stored patterns of elements of sound, as phones, or of complete words.
- spur-of-the-moment — occurring or done without advance preparation or deliberation; extemporaneous; unplanned: a spur-of-the-moment decision.
- superstring theory — any supersymmetric string theory in which each type of elementary particle is treated as a vibration of a single fundamental string (superstring) at a particular frequency.
- symphony orchestra — a large orchestra composed of wind, string, and percussion instruments and organized to perform symphonic compositions.
- systematic phoneme — a phonological unit in generative phonology representing an underlying form that takes into account the relationship between phonological patterns and morphological variation, as the unit underlying the second vowel in both derive and derivative.
- telephone exchange — a telecommunications facility to which subscribers' telephones connect, that switches calls among subscribers or to other exchanges for further routing.
- telephone receiver — a device, as in a telephone, that converts changes in an electric current into sound.
- telephone sex line — a telephone line operated by a phone-sex worker that offers phone sex to paying customers
- temporary hardness — hardness of water due to the presence of magnesium and calcium hydrogencarbonates, which can be precipitated as carbonates by boiling
- the encyclopedists — the writers of the French Encyclopedia (1751-72) edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, which contained the advanced ideas of the period
- the heavens opened — it started pouring with rain
- thought experiment — Physics. a demonstration or calculation that is based on the postulates of a theory, as relativity, and that demonstrates or clarifies the consequences of the postulates.
- to learn the ropes — If you are learning the ropes, you are learning how a particular task or job is done.
- to lick into shape — If you lick, knock, or whip someone or something into shape, you use whatever methods are necessary to change or improve them so that they are in the condition that you want them to be in.
- to open your heart — If you open your heart or pour out your heart to someone, you tell them your most private thoughts and feelings.
- to pick and choose — If you pick and choose, you carefully choose only things that you really want and reject the others.
- to spill the beans — If you spill the beans, you tell someone something that people have been trying to keep secret.
- to take the plunge — If you take the plunge, you decide to do something that you consider difficult or risky.
- white iron pyrites — marcasite
- wilson's phalarope — a phalarope, Phalaropus tricolor, that breeds in the prairie regions of North America and winters in Argentina and Chile.
- wireless telephone — Now Rare. radiotelephony.
- wireless telephony — Now Rare. radiotelephony.
- working hypothesis — See under hypothesis (def 1).