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18-letter words containing r, h, e, u

  • computer telephony — Computer Telephone Integration
  • congregate housing — a type of housing in which each individual or family has a private bedroom or living quarters but shares with other residents a common dining room, recreational room, or other facilities.
  • connected subgraph — (mathematics)   A connected graph consisting of a subset of the nodes and edges of some other graph.
  • considered harmful — (programming, humour)   A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
  • cornucopian thesis — the belief that, as long as science and technology continue to advance, growth can continue for ever because these new advances create new resources
  • corpuscular theory — the theory, originally proposed by Newton, and revived with the development of the quantum theory, that light consists of a stream of particles
  • counter-hypothesis — a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.
  • countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
  • court of exchequer — (formerly) an English civil court where Crown revenue cases were tried
  • cunninghame graham — R(obert) B(ontine). 1852–1936, Scottish traveller, writer, and politician, noted for his essays and short stories: first president (1928) of the Scottish Nationalist Party
  • cushing's syndrome — a medical condition characterized by obesity, hypertension, excessive hair growth, etc., caused by an overactive adrenal gland or large doses of corticosteroids
  • death-valley curve — a curve on a graph showing how the capital of a new company plotted against time declines sharply as the venture capital is used up before income reaches predicted levels
  • dermot macmurrough — ?1110–71, king of Leinster, who, by enlisting the support of the English to win back his kingdom, was responsible for the English conquest of Ireland
  • destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
  • devil's paintbrush — a perennial European hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) with leafless flower stalks bearing a cluster of orange-red heads: now a common weed in N U.S. and Canada
  • diatomaceous earth — an unconsolidated form of diatomite
  • down to the ground — thoroughly; completely
  • drop in the bucket — a deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semicircular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit, etc.; pail.
  • drug on the market — Pharmacology. a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being.
  • duchenne dystrophy — the most common form of muscular dystrophy, usually affecting only boys
  • duty-free shopping — the making of duty-free purchases
  • eat your heart out — Anatomy. a hollow, pumplike organ of blood circulation, composed mainly of rhythmically contractile smooth muscle, located in the chest between the lungs and slightly to the left and consisting of four chambers: a right atrium that receives blood returning from the body via the superior and inferior vena cavae, a right ventricle that pumps the blood through the pulmonary artery to the lungs for oxygenation, a left atrium that receives the oxygenated blood via the pulmonary veins and passes it through the mitral valve, and a left ventricle that pumps the oxygenated blood, via the aorta, throughout the body.
  • eighty-twenty rule — (programming)   The program-design version of the law of diminishing returns. The 80/20 rule says that roughly 80% of the problem can be solved with 20% of the effort that it would take to solve the whole problem. For example, parsing e-mail addresses in "From:" lines in e-mail messages is notoriously difficult if you follow the RFC 2822 specification. However, about 60% of actual "From:" lines are in the format "From: Their Name <[email protected]>", with a far more constrained idea of what can be in "user" or "host" than in RFC 2822. Another 25% just add double-quotes around "Their Name". Matching just those two patterns would thus cover 85% of "From:" lines, with a tiny portion of the code required to fully implement RFC2822. (Adding support for "From: [email protected]" and "From: [email protected] (Their Name) " brings coverage to almost 100%, leaving only really baroque things that RFC-2822 permits, like "From: Pete(A wonderful \) chap)
  • electrotherapeutic — Relating to electrotherapeutics.
  • equine herpesvirus — a viral disease of horses that may cause respiratory signs, abortion, neonatal death, and paresis. A vaccine is available against this disease
  • established church — a Church that is officially recognized as a national institution, esp the Church of England
  • euclid's algorithm — (algorithm)   (Or "Euclidean Algorithm") An algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two numbers. It relies on the identity gcd(a, b) = gcd(a-b, b) To find the GCD of two numbers by this algorithm, repeatedly replace the larger by subtracting the smaller from it until the two numbers are equal. E.g. 132, 168 -> 132, 36 -> 96, 36 -> 60, 36 -> 24, 36 -> 24, 12 -> 12, 12 so the GCD of 132 and 168 is 12. This algorithm requires only subtraction and comparison operations but can take a number of steps proportional to the difference between the initial numbers (e.g. gcd(1, 1001) will take 1000 steps).
  • exclusive brethren — one of the two main divisions of the Plymouth Brethren, which, in contrast to the Open Brethren, restricts its members' contacts with those outside the sect
  • executive chairman — the most senior internal position within a company, combining the duties of chairman and chief executive
  • fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
  • five hundred rummy — a variety of rummy in which the winner is the first player to score 500 points.
  • flowers of sulphur — minute crystals of sulphur obtained by condensing sulphur vapour on a cold surface
  • for the rest of us — (abuse)   (From the Macintosh slogan "The computer for the rest of us") 1. Used to describe a spiffy product whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe spiffy but very overpriced products. 2. Describes a program with a limited interface, deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality, inability to compose primitives, or any other limitation designed to not "confuse" a naïve user. This places an upper bound on how far that user can go before the program begins to get in the way of the task instead of helping accomplish it. Used in reference to Macintosh software which doesn't provide obvious capabilities because it is thought that the poor luser might not be able to handle them. Becomes "the rest of *them*" when used in third-party reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program that superficially looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface flash. See also point-and-drool interface, user-friendly.
  • forethoughtfulness — The condition of being forethoughtful.
  • fourth commandment — “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”: fourth of the Ten Commandments.
  • fracture toughness — The fracture toughness of a material is how likely it is to resist fracture.
  • from the ground up — the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground.
  • from the housetops — publicly and widely
  • front of the house — façade of residential building, house front
  • gas-discharge tube — any tube in which an electric discharge takes place through a gas
  • get off the ground — project: start well
  • get one's irish up — of, relating to, or characteristic of Ireland, its inhabitants, or their language.
  • get the upper hand — gain advantage
  • glomerulonephritis — a kidney disease affecting the capillaries of the glomeruli, characterized by albuminuria, edema, and hypertension.
  • go for the jugular — Anatomy. of or relating to the throat or neck. noting or pertaining to any of certain large veins of the neck, especially one (external jugular vein) collecting blood from the superficial parts of the head or one (internal jugular vein) collecting blood from within the skull.
  • government housing — housing owned and managed by the federal or state government, which is rented out to tenants, esp as a form of affordable housing
  • grandfather clause — U.S. History. a clause in the constitutions of some Southern states after 1890 intended to permit whites to vote while disfranchising blacks: it exempted from new literacy and property qualifications for voting those men entitled to vote before 1867 and their lineal descendants.
  • 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.
  • handlebar mustache — A handlebar mustache is a long thick mustache with curled ends.
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