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17-letter words containing s, h, e, f

  • methyltransferase — any of a class of enzymes that catalyze the transfer of methyl groups from one molecule to another.
  • mill on the floss — a novel (1860) by George Eliot.
  • neck of the woods — the part of the body of an animal or human being that connects the head and the trunk.
  • nightshade family — the plant family Solanaceae, characterized by herbaceous plants, trees, shrubs, and vines having alternate, simple or pinnate leaves, conspicuous flowers, and fruit in the form of a berry or capsule, and including belladonna, eggplant, nightshade, peppers of the genus Capsicum, petunia, potato, tobacco, and tomato.
  • nonteaching staff — employees within an academic or vocational environment whose jobs do not involve teaching
  • northern kingfish — a croaker, Menticirrhus saxatilis, inhabiting Atlantic coastal waters of the U.S.
  • northern studfish — See under studfish.
  • of the old school — If you approve of someone because they have good qualities that used to be more common in the past, you can describe them as one of the old school.
  • on the half shell — served raw, with seasonings, on a half shell
  • one for the books — a handwritten or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.
  • one of these days — at some future time
  • orifice discharge — Orifice discharge is a model for calculating how quickly a fluid will come out of a punctured vessel or pipe.
  • other fish to fry — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
  • out of one's head — the upper part of the body in humans, joined to the trunk by the neck, containing the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
  • overhead camshaft — a camshaft in an automotive engine that is located in the cylinder head over the engine block rather than in the block. Abbreviation: OHC.
  • overreach oneself — to fail because of trying to do more than one can
  • pacific northwest — the region of North America lying north of the Columbia River and west of the Rockies
  • past life therapy — a form of hypnosis or meditation based on the belief that an individual's present problems are rooted in events that occurred before birth in this life
  • phase of the moon — Used humorously as a random parameter on which something is said to depend. Sometimes implies unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to determine. "This feature depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon." See also heisenbug. True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend on the phase of the moon. There was a little subroutine that had traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an approximation to the moon's true phase. GLS incorporated this routine into a Lisp program that, when it wrote out a file, would print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long. Very occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read back in the program would barf. The length of the first line depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug literally depended on the phase of the moon! The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but the typesetter "corrected" it. This has since been described as the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.
  • phlebotomus fever — sandfly fever.
  • pincushion flower — scabious2 (def 1).
  • play with oneself — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
  • plug and feathers — an apparatus for splitting stone, consisting of two tapered bars (feathers) inserted into a hole drilled into the stone, between which a narrow wedge (plug) is hammered to spread them.
  • point of purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
  • point-of-purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
  • preference shares — a share of preferred stock.
  • preferential shop — a shop in which union members are preferred, usually by agreement of an employer with a union.
  • proof of purchase — a document, such as a receipt, etc, that proves that you have purchased or bought something
  • proof-of-purchase — a sales slip, label, box top, or other item associated with a product that is presentable as evidence of actual purchase, as for claiming a refund or rebate.
  • rush one's fences — to proceed with precipitate haste
  • salt of the earth — an individual or group considered as representative of the best or noblest elements of society.
  • sawed-off shotgun — rifle with a short barrel
  • scarlet firethorn — a Eurasian evergreen, thorny shrub, Pyracantha coccinea, of the rose family, having white, hairy flower clusters and bright red berries.
  • schiff-s--reagent — a solution of rosaniline and sulfurous acid in water, used to test for the presence of aldehydes.
  • scientific method — a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.
  • scientific theory — a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation: the scientific theory of evolution.
  • seat-of-the-pants — using or based on experience, instinct, or guesswork: a seat-of-the-pants management style.
  • self-annihilation — self-destruction; suicide.
  • share certificate — a certificate of deposit issued by a credit union.
  • shoot one's cuffs — to expose one's shirt cuffs beyond the coat sleeves
  • shutter-preferred — of or relating to a semiautomatic exposure system in which the photographer presets the shutter speed and the camera selects the aperture.
  • sign of the cross — a movement of the hand to indicate a cross, as from forehead to breast and left shoulder to right or, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, from right shoulder to left.
  • significant other — Sociology. a person, as a parent or peer, who has great influence on one's behavior and self-esteem.
  • single-sheet feed — a mechanism for feeding or taking single sheets of paper into a printer
  • sister of charity — a member of one of several congregations of sisters founded in 1634 by St. Vincent de Paul.
  • sixty-fourth note — a note having one sixty-fourth of the time value of a whole note; hemidemisemiquaver.
  • sixty-fourth rest — a rest equal in time value to a sixty-fourth note.
  • skin of our teeth — a play (1942) by Thornton Wilder.
  • south farmingdale — a town on central Long Island, in SE New York.
  • south frigid zone — the part of the earth's surface between the Antarctic Circle and the South Pole.
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