21-letter words containing s, h, a

mechanical suspension — the act of suspending.
megaspore mother cell — a diploid cell in plants that undergoes meiosis to create four haploid megaspores.
mengistu haile mariam — born 1937, Ethiopian political leader: head of state 1977–87; president 1987–91.
methylisothiazolinone — (chemistry) A powerful biocide and preservative within the group of isothiazolinones, used in shampoos etc.
modern apprenticeship — an arrangement that allows a school leaver to gain vocational qualifications while being trained in a job
mother-of-pearl glass — an American art glassware having colored glass set into indentations in a thickness of opaque glass, the whole covered with clear glass and etched slightly with acid.
motherwell and wishaw — a burgh in the Motherwell district, in S Scotland.
motivational research — the application of the knowledge and techniques of the social sciences, especially psychology and sociology, to understanding consumer attitudes and behavior: used as a guide in advertising and marketing.
mucopolysaccharidoses — Plural form of mucopolysaccharidosis.
mucopolysaccharidosis — Any of a group of metabolic disorders caused by the absence or malfunction of lysosomal enzymes needed to break down glycosaminoglycans.
multichannel analyser — an electronic instrument, such as a pulse height analyser, that splits an input waveform into a large number of channels in accordance with a particular parameter of the input
munchausen's syndrome — a mental disorder in which a patient feigns illness to obtain hospital treatment
night storage heating — a system of heating which uses a heater or radiator that stores heat at night-time because electricity is cheaper
nightmare file system — Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a higher spl level). Then another machine tries to reach either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is frozen - worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great misfeature). ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of Unix's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none of these problems in the early 1970s. See also broadcast storm.
no less a person than — a person of no lower importance, rank, etc. than
north east new guinea — the NE part of the former Australian Territory of New Guinea; now part of Papua New Guinea.
northumberland strait — the part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence that separates Prince Edward Island from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in SE Canada. About 200 miles (320 km) long; 9–30 miles (15–48 km) wide.
not a patch on sb/sth — If you say that someone or something is not a patch on another person or thing, you mean that they are not as good as that person or thing.
not hold one's breath — If you say that you won't hold your breath, you mean that you do not expect something to happen even though someone has suggested that it might.
old spanish practices — irregular practices among a group of workers to gain increased financial allowances, reduced working hours, etc
on o's best behaviour — If someone is on their best behaviour, they are trying very hard to behave well.
one-way hash function — (algorithm) (Or "message digest function") A one-way function which takes a variable-length message and produces a fixed-length hash. Given the hash it is computationally infeasible to find a message with that hash; in fact one can't determine any usable information about a message with that hash, not even a single bit. For some one-way hash functions it's also computationally impossible to determine two messages which produce the same hash. A one-way hash function can be private or public, just like an encryption function. MD5, SHA and Snefru are examples of public one-way hash functions. A public one-way hash function can be used to speed up a public-key digital signature system. Rather than sign a long message, which can take a long time, compute the one-way hash of the message, and sign the hash.
open graphics library — (graphics, library) (OpenGL) A multi-platform software interface to graphics hardware, supporting rendering and imaging operations. The OpenGL interface was developed by Silicon Graphics, who license it to other vendors. The OpenGL graphics interface consists of several hundred functions operating on 2D and 3D objects, supporting basic techniques, such as modelling and smooth shading, and advanced techniques, such as texture mapping and motion blur. Many operations require a frame buffer. OpenGL is network-transparent, and a common extension to the X Window System allows an OpenGL client to communicate across a network with a different vendor's OpenGL server. OpenGL is based on Silicon Graphics' proprietary IRIS GL.
ortho-phosphoric acid — a colorless, crystalline solid, H 3 PO 4 , the tribasic acid of pentavalent phosphorus: used chiefly in fertilizers, as a source of phosphorus salts, and in soft drinks as an acidulant and flavoring agent.
orthophosphorous acid — a white to yellowish, crystalline, hygroscopic, water-soluble solid, H 3 PO 3 , used chiefly in the synthesis of phosphites.
otorhinolaryngologist — (medicine) Doctor specializing in otorhinolaryngology, the study of ear, nose, and throat.
paper over the cracks — conceal flaws or problems
paper-white narcissus — a white-flowered variety of Narcissus tazetta, often forced for indoor bloom.
pass the hat (around) — In British English, if you pass the hat around, you collect money from a group of people, for example in order to give someone a present. In American English, you just say pass the hat.
path coverage testing — (testing) Testing a program by examining which lines of executable code are visited (as in code coverage testing) and also the ways of getting to each line of code and the subsequent sequence of execution. Path coverage testing is the most comprehensive type of testing that a test suite can provide. It can find more bugs, especially those that are caused by data coupling. However, path coverage is hard and usually only used for small and/or critical sections of code.
pathfinder prospectus — a prospectus regarding the flotation of a new company that contains only sufficient details to test the market reaction
peephole optimisation — (compiler) A kind of low-level code optimisation that considers only a few adjacent machine code instructions at a time and looks for certain combinations which can be replaced with more efficient sequences. E.g. ADD R0, #1 ADD R0, #1 (add one to register R0) could be replaced by ADD R0, #2 as long as there were no jumps to the second instruction.
phenarsazine chloride — adamsite.
philadelphia scrapple — a superior variety of scrapple made with pork shoulder and other cuts of pork rather than with pork scraps.
phrase structure tree — Linguistics. a structural representation of a sentence in the form of an inverted tree, with each node of the tree labeled according to the phrasal constituent it represents.
phrase-structure rule — a rule that generates a sentence or other syntactic construction from words and phrases and identifies its constituent structure.
physical anthropology — the branch of anthropology dealing with the evolutionary changes in human anatomy and physiology, using mensurational and descriptive techniques.
physically challenged — See example at challenged (def 1).
physician's assistant — a person trained to perform under the supervision of a physician many clinical procedures traditionally performed by a physician, as diagnosing and treating minor ailments. Abbreviation: PA.
pipelined burst cache — Pipeline Burst Cache
ploughman's spikenard — a European plant, Inula conyza, with tubular yellowish flower heads surrounded by purple bracts: family Asteraceae (composites)
populist shop steward — a shop steward who operates in a delegate role, putting the immediate interests of his members before union principles and policies
potassium diphosphate — any of the three orthophosphates of potassium ((potassium monophosphate) (K 2 HPO 4), (potassium diphosphate) (KH 2 PO 4), and (tripotassium phosphate) (K 3 PO 4) )
potassium thiocyanate — a colorless, crystalline, hygroscopic, water-soluble solid, KSCN, used chiefly in the manufacture of chemicals, dyes, and drugs.
primary sex character — any of the body structures directly concerned in reproduction, as the testes, ovaries, and external genitalia.
profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service
protestant work ethic — work ethic.
pseudohermaphroditism — an individual having internal reproductive organs of one sex and external sexual characteristics resembling those of the other sex or being ambiguous in nature. Compare hermaphrodite (def 1).
psychological primary — one of a set of perceived colours (red, yellow, blue, green, black, and white) that can be used to characterize all other perceived colours
psychological warfare — the use of propaganda, threats, and other psychological techniques to mislead, intimidate, demoralize, or otherwise influence the thinking or behavior of an opponent.

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