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17-letter words containing t, h, e, s, m, a

  • organic chemistry — the branch of chemistry, originally limited to substances found only in living organisms, dealing with the compounds of carbon.
  • 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.
  • overstep the mark — If someone oversteps the mark, they behave in a way that is considered unacceptable.
  • paleobiochemistry — the study of biochemical processes that occurred in fossil life forms.
  • 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.
  • pseudo-humanistic — a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
  • quantum chemistry — the application of quantum mechanics to the study of chemical phenomena.
  • quantum mechanics — a theory of the mechanics of atoms, molecules, and other physical systems that are subject to the uncertainty principle. Abbreviation: QM.
  • racial harassment — persecution on the basis of race
  • rheumatic disease — any of a group of diseases of the connective tissue, of uncertain causes, including rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and rheumatic fever
  • rhodope mountains — a mountain range in SE Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula extending along the border between Bulgaria and Greece. Highest peak: Golyam Perelik (Bulgaria), 2191 m (7188 ft)
  • rich site summary — (web, standard)   (RSS, blog, feed) A family of standard web document types containing regularly updated, short articles or news items. RSS documents (generally called "RSS feeds", "news feeds" or just "feeds") can be read with an RSS reader like BottomFeeder or Feedly. These are sometimes called "aggregators" because they combine multiple RSS feeds which the user can browse as a single list. The RSS reader tracks which articles the use has read, and is typically set to show only new articles, hence the idea of a "feed" or flow of new items. Most RSS feeds are based on RDF. RDF is a structured document format for describing textual resources such as news articles available on the web. RSS originally stood for "RDF Site Summary" as it was designed to provide short descriptions of (changes to) a website. Because it provides a standard way to deliver, or "syndicate", news or updates from one site to another, RSS is sometimes expanded as "Really Simple Syndication". It is closely associated with blogs, most of which provide an RSS feed of articles.
  • schematic capture — The process of entering the logical design of an electronic circuit into a CAE system by creating a schematic representation of components and interconnections.
  • semidetached mode — (programming)   A term used by COCOMO to describe a project development somewhere between organic and embedded. The team members have a mixture of experienced and inexperienced personnel. The software to be developed has some characteristics of both organic and embedded modes. Semidetached software can be as large as 300K DSIs.
  • semisophisticated — somewhat sophisticated.
  • september weather — weather characteristic of the month of September, esp in being unpredictable as summer is ending and autumn is beginning
  • seventh amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing trial by jury.
  • sexual harassment — unwelcome sexual advances made by an employer or superior, especially when compliance is made a condition of continued employment or advancement.
  • shorter catechism — one of the two catechisms established by the Westminster Assembly in 1647, used chiefly in Presbyterian churches.
  • shower attachment — a device fixed to taps to make a shower
  • shuttle diplomacy — diplomatic negotiations carried out by a mediator who travels back and forth between the negotiating parties.
  • simulated leather — fake leather that is an imitation of real leather and is usually made from a cheaper material
  • sixth commandment — “Thou shalt not kill”: sixth of the Ten Commandments.
  • snatch one's time — to leave a job, taking whatever pay is due
  • sodium bichromate — a red or orange crystalline, water-soluble solid, Na 2 Cr 2 O 7 ⋅2H 2 O, used as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of dyes and inks, as a corrosion inhibitor, a mordant, a laboratory reagent, in the tanning of leather, and in electroplating.
  • sodium dichromate — a red or orange crystalline, water-soluble solid, Na 2 Cr 2 O 7 ⋅2H 2 O, used as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of dyes and inks, as a corrosion inhibitor, a mordant, a laboratory reagent, in the tanning of leather, and in electroplating.
  • south farmingdale — a town on central Long Island, in SE New York.
  • south sea company — a British joint stock company that traded in South America in the 18th century. The South Sea Company took over the national debt in return for a monopoly of trade with the South Seas, causing feverish speculation in their stocks, and a financial crash in 1720 (the South Sea Bubble)
  • southampton water — an inlet of the English Channel in S England
  • squeegee merchant — a person who attempts to make money by squeegeeing the windscreens of cars that are stopped at traffic lights and then asking for payment
  • star of bethlehem — the star that is supposed to have appeared above Bethlehem at the birth of Christ
  • star-of-bethlehem — any of several plants belonging to the genus Ornithogalum, of the lily family, having grasslike leaves and clusters of white flowers.
  • steamship company — a company which has a fleet of steamships
  • sunbury-on-thames — a town in SE England, in N Surrey. Pop: 27 415 (2001)
  • support mechanism — any formal system or method of providing support or assistance
  • swash plate motor — a collar or face plate on a shaft that is inclined at an oblique angle to the axis of rotation and converts reciprocating motion to rotation
  • sympathetic magic — magic predicated on the belief that one thing or event can affect another at a distance as a consequence of a sympathetic connection between them.
  • take sth by storm — If someone or something takes a place by storm, they are extremely successful.
  • telephone message — a message that is transmitted by telephone
  • the establishment — a group or class of people having institutional authority within a society, esp those who control the civil service, the government, the armed forces, and the Church: usually identified with a conservative outlook
  • the last judgment — the occasion, after the resurrection of the dead at the end of the world, when, according to biblical tradition, God will decree the final destinies of all men according to the good and evil in their earthly lives
  • the lower animals — relatively simple or primitive animals and not mammals or vertebrates
  • the lower mammals — relatively simple or primitive mammals
  • the major leagues — the two main leagues of professional baseball clubs in the U.S., the National League and the American League
  • the metamorphosis — a short story (1915) by Franz Kafka.
  • the mississippian — the Mississippian period or rock system equivalent to the lower Carboniferous of Europe
  • the new jerusalem — the de facto capital of Israel (recognition of this has been withheld by the United Nations), situated in the Judaean hills: became capital of the Hebrew kingdom after its capture by David around 1000 bc; destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 586 bc; taken by the Romans in 63 bc; devastated in 70 ad and 135 ad during the Jewish rebellions against Rome; fell to the Arabs in 637 and to the Seljuk Turks in 1071; ruled by Crusaders from 1099 to 1187 and by the Egyptians and Turks until conquered by the British (1917); centre of the British mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, when the Arabs took the old city and the Jews held the new city; unified after the Six Day War (1967) under the Israelis; the holy city of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Pop: 693 200 (2003 est)
  • the primrose path — a pleasurable way of life
  • the show-me state — the nickname of the US state of Missouri, which comes from its inhabitants' reputation for scepticism
  • the smallest room — a euphemistic way of referring to the room the lavatory
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