18-letter words containing w, h, a
- hearts and flowers — maudlin sentimentality: The play is a period piece, full of innocence abused and hearts and flowers.
- heavy middleweight — a professional wrestler weighing 177–187 pounds (81–85 kg)
- hell or high water — whatever difficulties may arise
- herring bone weave — a pattern consisting of adjoining vertical rows of slanting lines, any two contiguous lines forming either a V or an inverted V , used in masonry, textiles, embroidery, etc.
- hot-water cylinder — a vertical cylindrical tank for storing hot water, esp an insulated one made of copper used in a domestic hot-water system
- hundred years' war — the series of wars between England and France, 1337–1453, in which England lost all its possessions in France except Calais.
- in accordance with — conforming to
- in black and white — without colour
- in company with sb — If you feel, believe, or know something in company with someone else, you both feel, believe, or know it.
- in comparison with — when compared to
- in compliance with — in accordance with
- in that/which case — You say in that case or in which case to indicate that what you are going to say is true if the possible situation that has just been mentioned actually exists.
- in with a shout of — If you say that someone is in with a shout of achieving or winning something, you mean that they have a chance of achieving or winning it.
- junior heavyweight — a boxer weighing up to 190 pounds (85.5 kg), between light heavyweight and heavyweight.
- lesser whitethroat — an Old World warbler, Sylvia curruca, having a greyish-brown plumage with a white throat and underparts
- look the other way — look in the opposite direction
- lower klamath lake — See under Klamath Lakes.
- 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".
- make heavy weather — to bring into existence by shaping or changing material, combining parts, etc.: to make a dress; to make a channel; to make a work of art.
- make short work of — exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.
- make sth one's own — If you make something your own, you become involved in it in such a way that people think of it as being related only to you or belonging only to you, rather than to anyone else.
- mechanical drawing — drawing, as of machinery, done with the aid of rulers, scales, compasses, etc.
- moscow art theater — a Russian theatrical company founded in 1898 principally by Konstantin Stanislavski and famous for its naturalistic acting.
- nailed to the wall — [like a trophy] Said of a bug finally eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort.
- negative cash flow — the situation when income is less than payments
- 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.
- north saskatchewan — a river in S central Canada, flowing E from the Rocky Mountains and joining the South Saskatchewan River to form the Saskatchewan River. 760 miles (1223 km) long.
- norwegian elkhound — one of a breed of dogs having a short, compact body, short, pointed ears, and a thick, gray coat, raised originally in Norway for hunting elk and other game.
- not breathe a word — to take air, oxygen, etc., into the lungs and expel it; inhale and exhale; respire.
- not that i know of — You say 'Not that I know of' when someone has asked you whether or not something is true and you think the answer is 'no' but you cannot be sure because you do not know all the facts.
- one way or another — somehow, by some means
- over and done with — If you say that something is over and done with, you mean that it is completely finished and you do not have to think about it any more.
- packet switch node — (PSN) A dedicated computer whose purpose is to accept, route and forward packets in a packet-switched network.
- paint the town red — a substance composed of solid coloring matter suspended in a liquid medium and applied as a protective or decorative coating to various surfaces, or to canvas or other materials in producing a work of art.
- pave the way (for) — to prepare the way (for); facilitate the introduction (of)
- peter and the wolf — a composition by Sergei Prokofiev written in 1936. It is a children's story with both music and text, spoken by a narrator accompanied by the orchestra
- peter tschaikowsky — Peter Ilyich [il-yich] /ˈɪl yɪtʃ/ (Show IPA), Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich.
- phantom withdrawal — the unauthorized removal of funds from a bank account using an automated teller machine
- prerelease showing — a showing of a film before it goes on general release
- przewalski's horse — a wild horse, Equus caballus przevalskii, chiefly of Mongolia and Sinkiang, characterized by light yellow coloring and a stiff, upright black mane with no forelock: the only remaining breed of wild horse, it is now endangered and chiefly maintained in zoos.
- random walk theory — the theory that the future movement of share prices does not reflect past movements and therefore will not follow a discernible pattern
- ready when you are — If you say to someone 'Ready when you are', you are telling them that you are now ready to do something and that as soon as they are ready, you will do it.
- rhode island white — one of a dual-purpose American breed of chickens having white feathers and a rose comb.
- right-to-work laws — a state law making it illegal to refuse employment to a person for the sole reason that he or she is not a union member.
- rosebay willowherb — a perennial onagraceous plant, Chamerion (formerly Epilobium) angustifolium, that has spikes of deep pink flowers and is widespread in open places throughout N temperate regions
- salem witch trials — 17th-century witchcraft case
- saskatchewan party — (in Canada) a Saskatchewan political party formed by former members of the provincial Progressive Conservative and Liberal Parties
- schwarz inequality — Also called Cauchy's inequality. the theorem that the inner product of two vectors is less than or equal to the product of the magnitudes of the vectors.
- sharp-shinned hawk — a North American hawk, Accipiter striatus, having extremely slender legs, a bluish-gray back, and a white, rusty-barred breast.