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14-letter words containing t, o, h, e, m, a

  • scratch monkey — (humour)   As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
  • semito-hamitic — a former name for the Afro-Asiatic family of languages
  • sidereal month — Also called calendar month. any of the twelve parts, as January or February, into which the calendar year is divided.
  • smothered mate — checkmate delivered by a knight when the king's mobility is restricted by his own pieces.
  • south american — a continent in the S part of the Western Hemisphere. About 6,900,000 sq. mi. (17,871,000 sq. km).
  • spanish omelet — an omelet served with a sauce of tomatoes, onions, and green peppers.
  • spermatorrhoea — abnormally frequent and involuntary nonorgasmic emission of semen.
  • spermatothecae — a female reproductive organ in some insects
  • sportfisherman — a motorboat fitted out for sportfishing.
  • stealth bomber — a type of US military aircraft using advanced technology to render it virtually undetectable to sight, radar, or infrared sensors
  • stereochemical — of, relating to, stereochemistry
  • stomachfulness — the quality of being stomachful
  • subatmospheric — (of a quantity) having a value lower than that of the atmosphere: subatmospheric temperatures.
  • sulphonmethane — a colourless crystalline compound used medicinally as a hypnotic. Formula: C7H16O4S2
  • symmetrophobia — an avoidance of symmetry, esp in Japanese art and Egyptian temples
  • tam-o'-shanter — a cap of Scottish origin, usually made of wool, having a round, flat top that projects all around the head and has a pompon at its center.
  • tetrachotomous — divided into four parts
  • texas hold 'em — a popular variety of poker in which each player can use any or all of five shared cards in combination with either or both of two private cards to form the best possible hand of five cards
  • the atomic age — the current historical period, initiated by the development of the first atomic bomb towards the end of World War II and now marked by a balance of power between nations possessing the hydrogen bomb and the use of nuclear power as a source of energy
  • the hexaemeron — the six-day period of the Creation
  • the job market — the people who are looking for work and the jobs available for them to do
  • the long march — a journey of about 10 000 km (6000 miles) undertaken (1934–35) by some 100 000 Chinese Communists when they were forced out of their base in Kiangsi in SE China. They made their way to Shensi in NW China; only about 8000 survived the rigours of the journey
  • the mabinogion — a collection of Welsh tales based on old Celtic legends and mythology in which magic and the supernatural play a large part
  • the paranormal — paranormal happenings generally
  • the real mccoy — the genuine thing or person as promised, stated, or implied (usually preceded by the or the real): Those other paintings are copies, but this one is the McCoy.
  • the roman rite — the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome
  • the royal mail — the national postal service of the United Kingdom
  • the-mabinogion — a collection of medieval Welsh romances that were translated (1838–49) by Lady Charlotte Guest.
  • thermoacoustic — pertaining to a method of cooling using air driven with acoustic power.
  • thermoanalysis — thermal analysis.
  • thermodynamics — the science concerned with the relations between heat and mechanical energy or work, and the conversion of one into the other: modern thermodynamics deals with the properties of systems for the description of which temperature is a necessary coordinate.
  • thermoformable — having the ability to be shaped using heat and pressure
  • thermolability — the state of being unstable or subject to transformation or destruction when heated
  • thermomagnetic — of or relating to the effect of heat on the magnetic properties of a substance.
  • thermoregulate — to maintain regular temperature, esp regular body temperature
  • thermoremanent — (of a rock) having a remnant magnetic field after cooling or solidification
  • thermostatting — a device, including a relay actuated by thermal conduction or convection, that functions to establish and maintain a desired temperature automatically or signals a change in temperature for manual adjustment.
  • thermotolerant — (of plants) able to tolerate, but not thriving in, high temperatures
  • thesaurismosis — storage disease.
  • thioantimonate — any of a group of chemical compounds considered salts of thioantimonic acid
  • thioantimonite — any of a group of chemical compounds considered salts of the thioantimonious acids
  • thomas raffles — Sir Thomas Stamford, 1781–1826, English colonial administrator in the East Indies.
  • thomas younger — Thomas Coleman ("Cole") 1844–1916, U.S. outlaw, associated with Jesse James.
  • thymelaeaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Thymelaeaceae, a family of trees and shrubs having tough acrid bark and simple leaves: includes spurge laurel, leatherwood, and mezereon
  • to the maximum — If you say that someone does something to the maximum, you are emphasizing that they do it to the greatest degree possible.
  • tomato ketchup — sauce made from tomatoes
  • top-hat scheme — a pension scheme for the senior executives of an organization
  • trachyspermous — having seeds with a rough coat.
  • trichomonacide — an agent that destroys trichomonads
  • trihalomethane — a type of chemical compound in which three of the hydrogen atoms in a methane molecule have been replaced by halogen atoms, esp by chlorine in drinking water. Trihalomethanes are thought to be carcinogenic
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