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

  • petrarchan sonnet — a sonnet form popularized by Petrarch, consisting of an octave with the rhyme scheme abbaabba and of a sestet with one of several rhyme schemes, as cdecde or cdcdcd.
  • 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.
  • phenyl isocyanate — a liquid reagent, C 7 H 5 NO, having an unpleasant, irritating odor: used chiefly for identifying alcohols and amines.
  • photo-respiration — the oxidation of carbohydrates in many higher plants in which they get oxygen from light and then release carbon dioxide, somewhat different from photosynthesis.
  • photodissociation — the dissociation or breakdown of a chemical compound by radiant energy.
  • phototherapeutics — the branch of therapeutics that deals with the curative use of light rays.
  • physical activity — sth involving use of the body
  • physical training — fitness coaching
  • pincushion cactus — any of various low-growing, spiny cacti of the genus Mammillaria.
  • play with oneself — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
  • plug and feathers — an apparatus for splitting stone, consisting of two tapered bars (feathers) inserted into a hole drilled into the stone, between which a narrow wedge (plug) is hammered to spread them.
  • pocket battleship — a small heavily armed and armored warship serving as a battleship because of limitations imposed by treaty.
  • point of purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
  • point-of-purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
  • polioencephalitis — a disease characterized by inflammation of the gray matter of the brain.
  • porterhouse steak — large cut of beef loin
  • preferential shop — a shop in which union members are preferred, usually by agreement of an employer with a union.
  • private ownership — the fact of being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body
  • pseudo-historical — of, pertaining to, treating, or characteristic of history or past events: historical records; historical research.
  • pseudo-humanistic — a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
  • psychodiagnostics — the study and evaluation of character or personality in terms of behavioral and anatomical traits, as gesture, posture and physiognomy.
  • psychoeducational — designating or of psychological methods, as intelligence tests, used in evaluating learning ability
  • psychotherapeutic — psychotherapy.
  • push the boat out — to celebrate, esp lavishly and expensively
  • put a stop to sth — If you put a stop to something that you do not like or approve of, you prevent it from happening or continuing.
  • put one's hand to — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
  • pythagorean scale — the major scale as derived acoustically by Pythagoras from the perfect fifth.
  • 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
  • rehospitalization — the act, process, or state of being hospitalized.
  • respiratory chain — a series of mitochondrial proteins that transport electrons of hydrogen, released in the Krebs cycle, from acetyl coenzyme A to inhaled oxygen to form H 2 O: the energy released in the process is conserved as ATP.
  • reverse apartheid — a perceived bias against White people following the end of Apartheid
  • rhetorical stress — stress required by the meaning of a line, as distinguished from that required by the meter.
  • rheumatic disease — any of a group of diseases of the connective tissue, of uncertain causes, including rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and rheumatic fever
  • rhode island bent — a European pasture grass, Agrostis tenuis, naturalized in North America, having red flower clusters.
  • 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.
  • right parenthesis — (character)   ")". ASCII character 41. Common names: right paren; right parenthesis; right; close; thesis ("(" = paren); close paren; close parenthesis; right parenthesis; right banana. Rare: already ("(" = so); rparen; ITU-T: closing parenthesis; close round bracket, right round bracket, INTERCAL: wane ("(" = wax); unparenthisey ("(" = parenthisey); right ear. Paired with left parenthesis.
  • roman catholicism — the faith, practice, and system of government of the Roman Catholic Church.
  • rough puff pastry — a rich flaky pastry made with butter and used for pie-crusts, flans, etc
  • rubarth's disease — a common, rapidly progressing viral hepatitis of dogs and other carnivores, often confused with canine distemper.
  • rush-hour traffic — the large number of vehicles that move along roads, travelling to or from work at the beginning and end of the working day
  • saint christopher — Saint, died a.d. c250, Christian martyr.
  • saint john's wort — any of various plants or shrubs of the genus Hypericum, having yellow flowers and transparently dotted leaves.
  • salt of the earth — an individual or group considered as representative of the best or noblest elements of society.
  • save one's breath — the air inhaled and exhaled in respiration.
  • save shoe leather — to avoid wearing out shoes, as by taking a bus rather than walking
  • saved by the bell — a hollow instrument of cast metal, typically cup-shaped with a flaring mouth, suspended from the vertex and rung by the strokes of a clapper, hammer, or the like.
  • sawatch mountains — range of the Rocky Mountains, in central Colo.: highest peak, Elbert
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