18-letter words containing the
- catherine of siena — Saint. 1347–80, Italian mystic and ascetic; patron saint of the Dominican order. Feast day: April 29
- change the subject — to select a new topic of conversation
- chord of the sixth — sixth chord.
- christian brothers — a religious congregation of laymen founded in France in 1684 for the education of the poor
- come down the pike — When something comes down the pike, it happens or occurs.
- come into the open — to become evident or public
- come the raw prawn — to attempt deception
- copper naphthenate — a green salt, soluble in benzene, used as an insecticide and a wood preservative, but harmless to plants.
- cornucopian thesis — the belief that, as long as science and technology continue to advance, growth can continue for ever because these new advances create new resources
- corpuscular theory — the theory, originally proposed by Newton, and revived with the development of the quantum theory, that light consists of a stream of particles
- counter-hypothesis — a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.
- countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
- demorgan's theorem — (logic) A logical theorem which states that the complement of a conjunction is the disjunction of the complements or vice versa. In symbols: not (x and y) = (not x) or (not y) not (x or y) = (not x) and (not y) E.g. if it is not the case that I am tall and thin then I am either short or fat (or both). The theorem can be extended to combinations of more than two terms in the obvious way. The same laws also apply to sets, replacing logical complement with set complement, conjunction ("and") with set intersection, and disjunction ("or") with set union. A (C) programmer might use this to re-write if (!foo && !bar) ... as if (!(foo || bar)) ... thus saving one operator application (though an optimising compiler should do the same, leaving the programmer free to use whichever form seemed clearest).
- diphtheria vaccine — a vaccine used to produce immunity against diphtheria
- down to the ground — thoroughly; completely
- drop in the bucket — a deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semicircular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit, etc.; pail.
- drug on the market — Pharmacology. a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being.
- electrotherapeutic — Relating to electrotherapeutics.
- every now and then — from time to time; occasionally
- fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
- family-tree theory — a theory that describes language change in terms of genetically related languages developing in successive splits from a common parent language, such as Indo-European, as depicted by a family tree diagram.
- farm the long acre — to graze cows on the verge of a road
- farmer in the dell — a game, accompanied by a song with several verses, in which one person, designated as the farmer, occupies the center of a circle of persons and is joined in the circle by other players designated as wife, child, nurse, cat, rat, and cheese, these then leaving the circle in order except for the one designated as cheese, who is left standing alone in the circle at the end.
- feather one's nest — one of the horny structures forming the principal covering of birds, consisting typically of a hard, tubular portion attached to the body and tapering into a thinner, stemlike portion bearing a series of slender, barbed processes that interlock to form a flat structure on each side.
- fight to the death — If you say that you will fight to the death for something, you are emphasizing that you will do anything to achieve or protect it, even if you suffer as a consequence.
- flame-of-the-woods — an Indian evergreen shrub, Ixora coccinea, of the madder family, having red, tubular flowers in dense clusters.
- fly in the face of — to move through the air using wings.
- fly off the handle — a part of a thing made specifically to be grasped or held by the hand.
- for the hell of it — the place or state of punishment of the wicked after death; the abode of evil and condemned spirits; Gehenna or Tartarus.
- for the life of me — If you say that you cannot for the life of you understand or remember something, you are emphasizing that you cannot understand or remember it, even if you try hard.
- for the rest of us — (abuse) (From the Macintosh slogan "The computer for the rest of us") 1. Used to describe a spiffy product whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe spiffy but very overpriced products. 2. Describes a program with a limited interface, deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality, inability to compose primitives, or any other limitation designed to not "confuse" a naïve user. This places an upper bound on how far that user can go before the program begins to get in the way of the task instead of helping accomplish it. Used in reference to Macintosh software which doesn't provide obvious capabilities because it is thought that the poor luser might not be able to handle them. Becomes "the rest of *them*" when used in third-party reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program that superficially looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface flash. See also point-and-drool interface, user-friendly.
- for the time being — the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.
- from the ground up — the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground.
- from the housetops — publicly and widely
- front of the house — façade of residential building, house front
- general anesthesia — induced unconsciousness
- get it in the neck — the part of the body of an animal or human being that connects the head and the trunk.
- get off the ground — project: start well
- get out of the way — move aside
- get the upper hand — gain advantage
- give sb the creeps — If someone or something gives you the creeps, they make you feel very nervous or frightened.
- give sb their head — If you give someone their head, you allow them to do what they want to do, without trying to advise or stop them.
- give the game away — to reveal one's intentions or a secret
- go back to the mat — to abandon urban civilization
- go for the jugular — Anatomy. of or relating to the throat or neck. noting or pertaining to any of certain large veins of the neck, especially one (external jugular vein) collecting blood from the superficial parts of the head or one (internal jugular vein) collecting blood from within the skull.
- go to the bathroom — use the toilet
- go with the stream — to conform to the accepted standards
- gone with the wind — a novel (1936) by Margaret Mitchell.
- grandfather clause — U.S. History. a clause in the constitutions of some Southern states after 1890 intended to permit whites to vote while disfranchising blacks: it exempted from new literacy and property qualifications for voting those men entitled to vote before 1867 and their lineal descendants.
- grease the palm of — to influence by giving money to; bribe