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18-letter words containing t, h, i, o, a, r

  • hysterical reasons — (Or "hysterical raisins") A variant on the stock phrase "for historical reasons", indicating specifically that something must be done in some stupid way for backward compatibility, and moreover that the feature it must be compatible with was the result of a bad design in the first place. "All IBM PC video adaptors have to support MDA text mode for hysterical reasons." Compare bug-for-bug compatible.
  • in accordance with — conforming to
  • in another's shoes — in another's position
  • in comparison with — when compared to
  • in the last resort — You use in the last resort when stating the most basic or important fact that will still be true in a situation whatever else happens.
  • indecent behaviour — the offence of committing indecent acts
  • information theory — the mathematical theory concerned with the content, transmission, storage, and retrieval of information, usually in the form of messages or data, and especially by means of computers.
  • inner automorphism — an automorphism that maps an element x into an element of the form axa −1 where a −1 is the inverse of a.
  • inter-relationship — reciprocal relation.
  • interrelationships — Plural form of interrelationship.
  • ionization chamber — a device for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation, consisting of a tube containing a low pressure gas and two electrodes between which a high voltage is maintained. The current between the electrodes is a function of the intensity of the radiation
  • iron (ii) sulphate — an iron salt with a saline taste, usually obtained as greenish crystals of the heptahydrate, which are converted to the white monohydrate above 100°C: used in inks, tanning, water purification, and in the treatment of anaemia. Formula: FeSO4
  • isothermal process — a process that takes place without change in temperature.
  • japanese artichoke — Chinese artichoke.
  • junior heavyweight — a boxer weighing up to 190 pounds (85.5 kg), between light heavyweight and heavyweight.
  • knight of the road — a tramp
  • lactogenic hormone — prolactin.
  • lake pontchartrain — a shallow lagoon in SE Louisiana, linked with the Gulf of Mexico by a narrow channel, the Rigolets: resort and fishing centre. Area: 1620 sq km (625 sq miles)
  • lesser whitethroat — an Old World warbler, Sylvia curruca, having a greyish-brown plumage with a white throat and underparts
  • lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
  • liqueur chocolates — chocolates containing liqueur
  • literae humaniores — (at Oxford University) the faculty concerned with Greek and Latin literature, ancient history, and philosophy; classics
  • lithostratigraphic — Of or pertaining to lithostratigraphy.
  • logarithmic spiral — log r = aθ
  • logarithmus dualis — (mathematics)   (ld) Latin for logarithm base two. More commonly written as "log" with a subscript "2". Roughly the number of bits required to represent an integer.
  • lower palaeolithic — the earliest of the three sections of the Palaeolithic, beginning about 3 million years ago and ending about 70 000 bc with the emergence of Neanderthal man
  • magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
  • magnetorheological — (physics) describing a substance whose rheological properties are modified by a magnetic field.
  • maternity hospital — birthing facility
  • mathematical error — a mistake in a mathematical calculation, etc
  • menthol cigarettes — cigarettes that are flavoured with menthol
  • merchant of venice — a comedy (1596?) by Shakespeare.
  • metamorphic facies — Geology. a group of metamorphic rock units characterized by particular mineralogic associations.
  • microsoft exchange — (messaging)   Microsoft's messaging and enterprise collaboration server. Exchange's primary role is as an electronic mail message store but it can also store calendars, task lists, contact details, and other data.
  • middle-of-the-road — favoring, following, or characterized by an intermediate position between two extremes, especially in politics; moderate.
  • minister of health — a person appointed to head the government department of health
  • moccasin telegraph — the transmission of rumour or secret information; the grapevine
  • modular arithmetic — arithmetic in which numbers that are congruent modulo a given number are treated as the same. Compare congruence (def 2), modulo, modulus (def 2b).
  • morphine addiction — the fact or condition of being addicted to morphine
  • natural philosophy — natural science.
  • nebular hypothesis — the theory that the solar system evolved from a mass of nebular matter: prominent in the 19th century following its precise formulation by Laplace.
  • neighborhood watch — a neighborhood surveillance program or group in which residents keep watch over one another's houses, patrol the streets, etc., in an attempt to prevent crime.
  • neo-pythagoreanism — a philosophical system, established in Alexandria and Rome in the second century b.c., consisting mainly of revived Pythagorean doctrines with elements of Platonism and Stoicism.
  • nervous exhaustion — extreme mental and physical fatigue caused by excessive emotional stress; neurasthenia.
  • nightmare scenario — If you describe a situation or event as a nightmare scenario, you mean that it is the worst possible thing that could happen.
  • nike of samothrace — a Greek marble statue (c200 b.c.) of Nike found at Samothrace and now in the Louvre, Paris.
  • no laughing matter — sth serious
  • non-characteristic — Also, characteristical. pertaining to, constituting, or indicating the character or peculiar quality of a person or thing; typical; distinctive: Red and gold are the characteristic colors of autumn.
  • noninterchangeable — That cannot be interchanged with another.
  • north polar region — the region of land and water surrounding the North Pole.
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