16-letter words containing s, c, h, n, a
- cowichan sweater — a heavy sweater of grey, unbleached wool with distinctive designs that were originally black-and-white but are now sometimes coloured: knitted originally by Cowichan Indians in British Columbia
- craftspersonship — The body of activities, skills, techniques, knowledge, and expertise pertinent to (a) particular craft(s).
- cut one's throat — to bring about one's own ruin
- dagwood sandwich — a thick sandwich filled with a variety of meats, cheeses, dressings, and condiments.
- darwin's finches — the finches of the subfamily Geospizinae of the Galapagos Islands, showing great variation in bill structure and feeding habits: provided Darwin with evidence to support his theory of evolution
- database machine — (hardware) A computer or special hardware that stores and retrieves data from a database. It is specially designed for database access and is coupled to the main (front-end) computer(s) by a high-speed channel. This contrasts with a database server, which is a computer in a local area network that holds a database. The database machine is tightly coupled to the main CPU, whereas the database server is loosely coupled via the network.
- dechristianizing — Present participle of dechristianize.
- devonshire cream — clotted cream.
- dialysis machine — device: kidney treatment
- discharging arch — an arch for taking some of the weight from a structural member beneath it.
- disenfranchising — Present participle of disenfranchise.
- disfranchisement — to deprive (a person) of a right of citizenship, as of the right to vote.
- district heating — a heating system in which centrally generated heat is distributed via ducts and pipes to multiple buildings or locations
- do the necessary — to do something that is necessary in a particular situation
- drunkard's chair — a low, deep armchair of the 18th century.
- dual citizenship — Also called dual nationality. the status of a person who is a legal citizen of two or more countries.
- electromechanics — the engineering aspects of devices that are controlled by either static or magnetic electric charges
- electronic flash — Photography
- engineer's chain — a unit of length equal to 100 feet
- english canadian — a Canadian citizen whose first language is English, esp one of English descent
- enthusiastically — In an enthusiastic manner.
- escape mechanism — way of avoiding reality
- escutcheon plate — a plate or shield that surrounds a keyhole, door handle, light switch, etc, esp an ornamental one protecting a door or wall surface
- ethnic cleansing — genocide
- exchange student — sb who studies abroad
- fahrenheit scale — Gabriel Daniel [German gah-bree-el dah-nee-el] /German ˈgɑ briˌɛl ˈdɑ niˌɛl/ (Show IPA), 1686–1736, German physicist: devised a temperature scale and introduced the use of mercury in thermometers.
- family physician — a general practitioner.
- father confessor — confessor (def 2).
- fingertip search — When the police carry out a fingertip search of a place, they examine it for evidence in a very detailed way.
- floridean starch — the storage polysaccharide of red algae.
- force one's hand — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
- franchise clause — a clause stipulating that the insured will be responsible for any loss not in excess of a stated amount, and the insurance company will be liable for full payment of the loss equaling or exceeding the amount up to the insured amount.
- francis joseph i — 1830–1916, emperor of Austria 1848–1916; king of Hungary 1867–1916.
- frankfurt school — a school of thought, founded at the University of Frankfurt in 1923 by Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and others, derived from Marxist, Freudian, and Hegelian theory
- french cameroons — Cameroun (def 2).
- french polynesia — a French overseas territory in the S Pacific, including the Society Islands, Marquesas Islands, and other scattered island groups. 1544 sq. mi. (4000 sq. km). Capital: Papeete.
- functional shift — a change in the grammatical function of a word, as in the use of the noun input as a verb or the noun fun as an adjective.
- gadsden purchase — a tract of 45,535 sq. mi. (117,935 sq. km), now contained in New Mexico and Arizona, purchased for $10,000,000 from Mexico in 1853, the treaty being negotiated by James Gadsden.
- gnu archive site — (body) The main GNU FTP archive is on gnu.org but copies ("mirrors") of some or all of the files there are also held on many other computers around the world. To avoid overloading gnu.org and the Internet you should FTP files from the machine closest to yours. Look for a directory like /pub/gnu, /mirrors/gnu, /systems/gnu or /archives/gnu.
- golden handcuffs — payments deferred over a number of years that induce a person to stay with a particular company or in a particular job
- graphic designer — person: commercial artist
- growth substance — any substance, produced naturally by a plant or manufactured commercially, that, in very low concentrations, affects plant growth; a plant hormone
- hacienda heights — a city in SW California, near Los Angeles.
- hailing distance — the distance within which the human voice can be heard: They sailed within hailing distance of the island.
- hamming distance — (data) The minimum number of bits that must be changed in order to convert one bit string into another. Named after the mathematician Richard Hamming.
- hand screw clamp — a screw that can be tightened by the fingers, without the aid of a tool.
- handling charges — a fee paid to cover the packaging, transport, etc, of a commodity
- hanseatic league — a medieval league of towns of northern Germany and adjacent countries for the promotion and protection of commerce.
- hard-packed snow — snow which becomes very firmly packed as it becomes refrozen due to cold weather conditions rather than melting
- hay-scented fern — a fern, Dennstaedtia punctilobula, of eastern North America, having brittle, yellow-green fronds.