17-letter words containing s, h
- bell-hanger's bit — a bit for drilling small holes through studs or the like.
- bell-shaped curve — bell curve
- belted kingfisher — a grayish-blue, North American kingfisher, Ceryle alcyon, having a white breast marked with a grayish-blue band.
- bent out of shape — very angry, upset, or agitated
- bergisch gladbach — city in W Germany, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia: pop. 105,000
- bergisch-gladbach — an industrial city in W Germany, near Cologne.
- best first search — (algorithm) A graph search algorithm which optimises breadth first search by ordering all current paths according to some heuristic. The heuristic attempts to predict how close the end of a path is to a solution. Paths which are judged to be closer to a solution are extended first. See also beam search, hill climbing.
- bighorn mountains — range of the Rocky Mountains in N Wyo. and S Mont.: highest peak, 13,165 ft (4,013 m)
- biological shield — a protective shield impervious to radiation, esp the thick concrete wall surrounding the core of a nuclear reactor
- bird's-eye chilli — a small red hot-tasting chilli
- blackcurrant bush — a bush of the blackcurrant plant
- blasphemous libel — In Britain, previously, the crime committed if a person insults, offends, or vilifies the deity, Christ, or the Christian religion
- blood cholesterol — a measurement of the amount of cholesterol in someone's blood
- blue-sky thinking — Blue-sky thinking is the activity of trying to find completely new ideas.
- board-and-shingle — a small dwelling with wooden walls and a shingle roof
- boatswain's chair — a seat consisting of a short flat board slung from ropes, used to support a person working on the side of a vessel or in its rigging
- boiler horsepower — a unit of measurement of the ability of a boiler to evaporate water, usually given as the ability to evaporate 34½ pounds (15.6 kg) of water an hour, into dry saturated steam from and at 212°F (100°C).
- boothia peninsula — a peninsula of N Canada: the northernmost part of the mainland of North America, lying west of the Gulf of Boothia, an arm of the Arctic Ocean
- bottlebrush grass — a North American grass, Hystrix patula, having loose flower spikes with long awns.
- branch delay slot — delayed control-transfer
- breach of promise — (formerly) failure to carry out one's promise to marry
- break one's heart — to grieve or cause to grieve very deeply, esp through love
- british cameroons — a former British trust territory of West Africa
- british columbian — of or relating to British Columbia or its inhabitants
- british israelite — a member of a religious movement claiming that the British people are descended from the lost tribes of Israel
- british shorthair — a breed of large cat with a short dense coat
- british-cameroons — German Kamerun. a region in W Africa: a German protectorate 1884–1919; divided in 1919 into British and French mandates.
- broadview heights — a town in N Ohio.
- bull of the woods — the foreman of a logging operation.
- buncher resonator — See under Klystron.
- bursting strength — the capacity of a thing or substance to resist change when under pressure.
- bushman's singlet — a sleeveless heavy black woollen singlet, used as working clothing by timber fellers
- buttonhole stitch — a reinforcing looped stitch for the edge of material, such as around a buttonhole
- by the same token — You use by the same token to introduce a statement that you think is true for the same reasons that were given for a previous statement.
- cache consistency — cache coherency
- calcium phosphate — the insoluble nonacid calcium salt of orthophosphoric acid (phosphoric(V) acid): it occurs in bones and is the main constituent of bone ash. Formula: Ca3(PO4)2
- cannot choose but — to be obliged to
- carbon disulphide — a colourless slightly soluble volatile flammable poisonous liquid commonly having a disagreeable odour due to the presence of impurities: used as an organic solvent and in the manufacture of rayon and carbon tetrachloride. Formula: CS2
- cardiogenic shock — a type of shock caused by decreased cardiac output despite adequate blood volume, owing to a disease of the heart itself, as myocardial infarction, or any other factor that interferes with the filling or emptying of the heart.
- case-study method — Also called case-study method [keys-stuhd-ee] /ˈkeɪsˈstʌd i/ (Show IPA). the teaching or elucidation of a subject or issue through analysis and discussion of actual cases, as in business education.
- casting the runes — (jargon) What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program because it never works for anyone else; especially used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does. Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight.
- castle in the air — a hope or desire unlikely to be realized; daydream
- cat scratch fever — a disorder characterized by fever and swelling of the lymph glands, caused by a viral infection resulting from the scratch or bite of a cat.
- cat-scratch fever — a disease of humans caused by an organism, Bartonella henselae, usually resulting from a scratch by a cat and characterized by lymph node enlargement
- catastrophization — The act or process of catastrophizing.
- catch one's death — to contract a severe cold
- catcher resonator — See under Klystron.
- catholic epistles — the epistles of James, I and II Peter, I John, and Jude, which were addressed to the universal Church rather than to an individual or a particular church
- caudal anesthesia — anesthesia below the pelvis, induced by injecting an anesthetic into the sacral portion of the spinal canal.
- celestial horizon — the line or circle that forms the apparent boundary between earth and sky.