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17-letter words starting with h

  • helen keller mode — 1. State of a hardware or software system that is deaf, dumb, and blind, i.e. accepting no input and generating no output, usually due to an infinite loop or some other excursion into deep space. (Unfair to the real Helen Keller, whose success at learning speech was triumphant.) See also go flatline, catatonic. 2. On IBM PCs under MS-DOS, refers to a specific failure mode in which a screen saver has kicked in over an ill-behaved application which bypasses the very interrupts the screen saver watches for activity. Your choices are to try to get from the program's current state through a successful save-and-exit without being able to see what you're doing, or to re-boot the machine. This isn't (strictly speaking) a crash.
  • helicopter parent — a style of child rearing in which an overprotective mother or father discourages a child's independence by being too involved in the child's life: In typical helicopter parenting, a mother or father swoops in at any sign of challenge or discomfort.
  • hemiglossectomies — Plural form of hemiglossectomy.
  • hemoconcentration — an increase in the concentration of cellular elements in the blood, resulting from loss of plasma.
  • hemorrhagic fever — any of several arbovirus infections, as dengue, characterized by fever, chills, and malaise followed by hemorrhages of capillaries, sometimes leading to kidney failure and death.
  • henry cabot lodge — Henry Cabot, 1850–1924, U.S. public servant and author: senator 1893–1924.
  • henry of portugal — ("the Navigator") 1394–1460, prince of Portugal: sponsor of geographic explorations.
  • hepatitis b virus — a form of hepatitis caused by a DNA virus (hepatitis B virus, or HBV) that persists in the blood, characterized by a long incubation period: usually transmitted by sexual contact or by injection or ingestion of infected blood or other bodily fluids.
  • heptanedioic acid — pimelic acid.
  • herbaceous border — A herbaceous border is a flower bed containing a mixture of plants that flower every year.
  • heritage industry — an industry that manages the historical sites, buildings, and museums in a particular place, with the aim of encouraging tourism
  • hermaphrodite rig — jackass rig.
  • heterochlamydeous — (of a plant) having a perianth consisting of distinct sepals and petals
  • heterochromosomes — Plural form of heterochromosome.
  • heteronormativity — The view that all human beings are either male or female, both in sex and in gender, and that sexual and romantic thoughts and relations are normal only when between people of different sexes.
  • hexacosanoic acid — cerotic acid.
  • hexadecanoic acid — palmitic acid.
  • higgledy-piggledy — in a jumbled, confused, or disorderly manner; helter-skelter.
  • high commissioner — a representative of one sovereign member of the Commonwealth of Nations in the country of another, having a rank and responsibilities generally similar to those of an ambassador.
  • high muckety-muck — high muck-a-muck
  • high-carbon steel — steel containing between 0.5 and 1.5 per cent carbon
  • high-density disk — a computer storage disk capable of holding more than 720 kilobytes of data
  • high-heeled shoes — shoes having high, rather than flat, heels
  • high-tensile wire — wire which can withstand great strain without breaking or becoming deformed
  • higher arithmetic — arithmetic (def 2).
  • highways engineer — a civil engineer trained and specialized in the planning, construction, maintenance, etc of highways and roads
  • hillcrest heights — a city in central Maryland, near Washington, D.C.
  • hillel foundation — a national organization, founded in 1924 by the B'nai B'rith, that institutes and administers programs designed to enrich the religious, cultural, and social life of Jewish college students.
  • hippocampal gyrus — a convolution on the inner surface of the temporal lobe of the cerebrum, bordering the hippocampus.
  • hiring and firing — the authority to hire or fire staff, or the act of doing this
  • histamine blocker — any of various substances that act at a specific receptor site to block certain actions of histamine.
  • histopathological — the science dealing with the histological structure of abnormal or diseased tissue; pathological histology.
  • historical method — the process of establishing general facts and principles through attention to chronology and to the evolution or historical course of what is being studied.
  • historical school — a school of economists that arose in Germany in the 19th century in reaction to the principles of the classical economists, and that maintained that the factors making up an economy are variable and develop out of social institutions.
  • historiographical — the body of literature dealing with historical matters; histories collectively.
  • hit for the cycle — any complete round or series of occurrences that repeats or is repeated.
  • hit over the head — to strike on the head
  • hit the headlines — be prominently featured in the news
  • ho chi minh trail — a network of jungle paths winding from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam, used as a military route by North Vietnam to supply the Vietcong during the Vietnam War.
  • hoare powerdomain — powerdomain
  • hodgkin's disease — a type of cancer characterized by progressive chronic inflammation and enlargement of the lymph nodes of the neck, armpit, groin, and mesentery, by enlargement of the spleen and occasionally of the liver and the kidneys, and by lymphoid infiltration along the blood vessels.
  • hold all the aces — If you say that someone holds all the aces, you mean that they have all the advantages in a contest or situation.
  • hold one's breath — If you say that someone is holding their breath, you mean that they are waiting anxiously or excitedly for something to happen.
  • hold one's end up — the last part or extremity, lengthwise, of anything that is longer than it is wide or broad: the end of a street; the end of a rope.
  • hold one's ground — the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground.
  • hold one's horses — a large, solid-hoofed, herbivorous quadruped, Equus caballus, domesticated since prehistoric times, bred in a number of varieties, and used for carrying or pulling loads, for riding, and for racing.
  • hold one's tongue — Anatomy. the usually movable organ in the floor of the mouth in humans and most vertebrates, functioning in eating, in tasting, and, in humans, in speaking.
  • hold sb to ransom — If you say that someone is holding you to ransom in British English, or holding you for ransom in American English, you mean that they are using their power to try to force you to do something which you do not want to do.
  • holding operation — a plan or procedure devised to prolong the existing situation
  • hole in the heart — a defect of the heart in which there is an abnormal opening in any of the walls dividing the four heart chambers
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