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28-letter words containing s, h, i

  • have two strikes against one — to be at a decided disadvantage
  • high performance file system — (file system)   (HPFS) The native file system for IBM's OS/2.
  • hot standby routing protocol — (protocol)   (HSRP) A CISCO standard, defined in RFC 2281, that calls for a mirrored router in passive mode to send hello packets, wait for a lead router to die and, without dropping a packet, take over from that router. Note: "standby", not "swappable" (and certainly not "swapable").
  • how stupid/lucky can you get — You can say, for example, 'How lucky can you get?' or 'How stupid can you get?' to show your surprise that anyone could be as lucky or stupid as the person that you are talking about.
  • human immunodeficiency virus — See under AIDS virus. Abbreviation: HIV.
  • hydrolysed vegetable protein — a powder or liquid that is produced by boiling legumes or cereals in hydrochloric acid and then neutralizing with sodium hydroxide. It is used as a flavouring in some foods, such as soups and bouillon cubes
  • imperial software technology — (company)   A software engineering company which emerged from Imperial College in about 1982. It enjoys a world-wide reputation for technical excellence as a software product and technology provider in the Open Systems market. Its flagship product is X-Designer, the award-winning graphical user interface builder. It also has considerable expertise in the Z language and Formal Methods.
  • infectious laryngotracheitis — a viral disease of adult chickens, characterized by inflammation and hemorrhage of the larynx and trachea and, in many cases, resulting in asphyxiation.
  • instruction set architecture — (architecture)   (ISA) The parts of a processor's design that need to be understood in order to write assembly language, such as the machine language instructions and registers. Parts of the architecture that are left to the implementation, such as number of superscalar functional units, cache size and cycle speed, are not part of the ISA. The definition of SPARC, for example, carefully distinguishes between an implementation and a specification.
  • internet research task force — (IRTF) The IRTF is chartered by the Internet Architecture Board to consider long-term Internet issues from a theoretical point of view. It has Research Groups, similar to Internet Engineering Task Force Working Groups, which are each tasked to discuss different research topics. Multi-cast audio/video conferencing and privacy enhanced mail are samples of IRTF output.
  • it won't hurt/it never hurts — If you say 'It won't hurt to do something' or 'It never hurts to do something', you are recommending an action which you think is helpful or useful.
  • it's a good job/a good thing — If you say it's a good thing that something is the case, you mean that it is fortunate.
  • knock the stuffing out of sb — If something knocks the stuffing out of you when you are feeling enthusiastic or confident about something, it causes you to lose your enthusiasm or confidence.
  • lempel-ziv welch compression — (LZW) The algorithm used by the Unix compress command to reduce the size of files, e.g. for archival or transmission. LZW was designed by Terry Welch in 1984 for implementation in hardware for high-performance disk controllers. It is a variant of LZ78, one of the two Lempel-Ziv compression schemes. The LZW algorithm relies on reoccurrence of byte sequences (strings) in its input. It maintains a table mapping input strings to their associated output codes. The table initially contains mappings for all possible strings of length one. Input is taken one byte at a time to find the longest initial string present in the table. The code for that string is output and then the string is extended with one more input byte, b. A new entry is added to the table mapping the extended string to the next unused code (obtained by incrementing a counter). The process repeats, starting from byte b. The number of bits in an output code, and hence the maximum number of entries in the table is usually fixed and once this limit is reached, no more entries are added. LZW compression and decompression are licensed under Unisys Corporation's 1984 U.S. Patent 4,558,302 and equivalent foreign patents. This kind of patent isn't legal in most coutries of the world (including the UK) except the USA. Patents in the UK can't describe algorithms or mathematical methods.
  • like a lamb to the slaughter — without resistance
  • lloyd's register of shipping — an annual publication giving details of all ships that have been built according to the various classifications established by this society
  • machine-assisted translation — translation done by a human translator who uses computer software to assist with the translation
  • make one's hair stand on end — any of the numerous fine, usually cylindrical, keratinous filaments growing from the skin of humans and animals; a pilus.
  • morpheme structure condition — (in generative phonology) a constraint on the occurrence of sounds or sequences of sounds in the phonological representation of morphemes.
  • mouth-to-mouth resuscitation — a method of artificial respiration in which a person rhythmically blows air into the victim's lungs, either directly, by placing the mouth over the patient's, or through a tube.
  • national physical laboratory — a UK establishment founded in 1900 at Teddington to carry out research in physics and monitor standards of measurement
  • none the wiser/any the wiser — If you say that someone is none the wiser after an event or an explanation, or that nobody is any the wiser after it, you mean that they have failed to understand it, or are not fully aware of what happened.
  • north-west frontier province — a province in Pakistan, bordering Punjab and Kashmir on the west: a former province of British India. 28,773 sq. mi. (77,516 sq. km). Capital: Peshawar.
  • not have room to swing a cat — to have very little space
  • object-oriented polymorphism — (programming)   The kind of polymorphism found in object-oriented programming languages where a variable can refer to an object whose class is not known exactly until run time. A method can use a variable of a given class - call other methods on it, pass it as an argument, etc. - without needing to know to which subclass it refers, as long as its actual class is compatible with those uses.
  • ordinary-language philosophy — linguistic analysis.
  • ousterhout's false dichotomy — Ousterhout's dichotomy
  • peaches-and-cream complexion — a pale complexion with rosy cheeks
  • penny-wise and pound-foolish — careful about trifles but wasteful in large ventures
  • positron emission tomography — the process of producing a PET scan.
  • read the riot act to someone — to warn or reprimand someone severely
  • revised version of the bible — a recension of the Authorized Version, prepared by British and American scholars, the Old Testament being published in 1885, and the New Testament in 1881.
  • richardson's ground squirrel — a ground squirrel of the NW USA and Canada, Citellus richardsoni
  • rise/come back from the dead — If you say that someone or something rises or comes back from the dead, you mean that they become active or successful again after being inactive for a while.
  • scared to death scared stiff — If you are scared to death or scared stiff, you are extremely scared.
  • second law of thermodynamics — any of three principles variously stated in equivalent forms, being the principle that the change of energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work done (first law of thermodynamics) the principle that no cyclic process is possible in which heat is absorbed from a reservoir at a single temperature and converted completely into mechanical work (second law of thermodynamics) and the principle that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations (third law of thermodynamics)
  • second marquis of rockingham — Charles, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham [rok-ing-uh m] /ˈrɒk ɪŋ əm/ (Show IPA), 1730–82, British statesman: prime minister 1765–66, 1782.
  • secondary sex characteristic — any of a number of manifestations, as development of breasts or beard, muscularity, distribution of fat tissue, and change of pitch in voice, specific to each sex and incipient at puberty but not essential to reproduction.
  • shared-appreciation mortgage — a type of mortgage that carries a smaller down payment or lower interest rate than usual in return for the lender's sharing in the appreciation of the property at some future date, as at the time of its sale. Abbreviation: SAM.
  • shut one's eyes to something — If you say that someone shuts their eyes to something, you mean that they deliberately ignore something which they should deal with.
  • sign one's own death warrant — A death warrant is an official document which orders that someone is to be executed as a punishment for a crime.
  • smooth endoplasmic reticulum — a network of tubular membranes within the cytoplasm of the cell, occurring either with a smooth surface (smooth endoplasmic reticulum) or studded with ribosomes (rough endoplasmic reticulum) involved in the transport of materials.
  • special theory of relativity — the state or fact of being relative.
  • strike while the iron is hot — Chemistry. a ductile, malleable, silver-white metallic element, scarcely known in a pure condition, but much used in its crude or impure carbon-containing forms for making tools, implements, machinery, etc. Symbol: Fe; atomic weight: 55.847; atomic number: 26; specific gravity: 7.86 at 20°C. Compare cast iron, pig iron, steel, wrought iron.
  • sudden infant death syndrome — death from the sudden cessation of breathing (apnea) of a seemingly healthy infant, almost always during sleep, sometimes traceable to a chronic oxygen deficiency. Abbreviation: SIDS.
  • super video graphics adapter — Super Video Graphics Array
  • super video graphics adaptor — Super Video Graphics Array
  • systemic lupus erythematosus — an autoimmune inflammatory disease of the connective tissues, occurring mainly among middle-aged women, chiefly characterized by skin eruptions, joint pain, recurrent pleurisy, and kidney disease. Abbreviation: SLE.
  • systems network architecture — (networking)   (SNA) IBM's proprietary high level networking protocol standard, used by IBM and IBM compatible mainframes. Also referred to as "Blue Glue", SNA is a bletcherous protocol once widely favoured at commercial shops. The official IBM definition is "that which binds blue boxes together." It may be relevant that Blue Glue is also a 3M product commonly used to hold down carpets in dinosaur pens.
  • take your eyes off something — When you take your eyes off the thing you have been watching or looking at, you stop looking at it.
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