| •|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z|• | ||
| • H • | ||
| Word | Meaning | Eponym |
| Hansard | The official published report of the proceedings of a British-style parliamentary body. | Luke Hansard (1752-1828), the English printer who printed the Journals of the House of Commons from 1774 to his death. |
| hansom cab |
A two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage with the driver's seat behind the passengers. | Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803-82), an architect from Hinckley, Leicestershire, England, who designed and patented it. |
| hartree | An atomic unit of energy. | Douglas Rayner Hartree (1897-1958), English mathematician and physicist known for his work in numerical analysis and its application to atomic physics. |
| havelock | A cloth covering for a cap with a flap protecting the back of the neck from the sun. | Sir Henry Havelock (1795-1857), a British general in India during the colonial period. |
| hawkshaw | A gumshoe, a detective, a PI. | Hawkshaw the Detective from the 1863 play The Ticket of Leave Man by British dramatist Tom Taylor. |
| hector | To pester, bully, push around. | Hector, a Trojan prince and one of the greatest fighters in the Trojan War. |
| henry | A unit of inductance created when an electromotive force of one volt is produced by varying current at the rate of one ampere per second. | Joseph Henry (1797-1878), American physicist who discovered the electromagnetic phenomenon of self-inductance and whose work on the electromagnetic relay was critical to the invention of the telegraph. |
| Hepplewhite | Of or related to an 18th-century English style of furniture characterized by graceful lines, the use of concave curves, and the heart-shaped backs of its chairs. | George Hepplewhite (died 1786), an English cabinet-maker who developed the style. |
| herculean | Huge, enormous, requiring immense strength. | Hercules, a Greek hero forced to complete 12 extremely difficult tasks to restore himself in the eyes of the gods. |
| hermaphrodite | A person or animal with traits of both sexes. | Hermaphroditos, son of Hermes and Aphrodite in Greek mythology, who was transformed into a hermaphrodite by a forced union with the nymph Salmacis. |
| hermetic | Sealed air-tight. | From New Latin hermticus "alchemical", from the name of Hermes Trismegistus (Hermes Thrice-Great), the Greek name of an Egyptian priest and scholar known for his mastery of all three domains of knowledge of the time. |
| hertz | A unit of frequency equal to one cycle per second. | Heinrich Rudolph Hertz (1857-94), German physicist who was the first to demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic radiation using a device he built to produce UHF radio waves. |
| hooligan | A ruffian, delinquent, mean person who does damage. | The name figured in a popular music-hall song of the 1890s, which described the doings of a rowdy Irish family by the name of Hooligan. |
| hoover | A vacuum cleaner (UK). | William Henry Hoover (1849-1932), American businessman who began producing vacuum cleaners after purchasing the patent from a family acquaintance, James Murray Spangler. |
| hyacinth | A bulb plant (Hyacinthus orientalis) that flowers early in the spring with several spears of bell-shaped flowers. | From Greek huakinthos "wild hyacinth", also the name of Hyacinthus, a divine hero, the son of Clio and Pierus, King of Macedonia, for which one of the principal Spartan festivals, the Hyacinthia, was held every summer. |
Do you like our eponym glossary? You will probably like alphaDictionary's other glossaries and lists, too.
- NEW STUFF! Sentences Made from Movie Titles
Zany thoughts in sentences made up of movie titles. A game you can play, too. - NEW STUFF! A List of Funny Company Names
Some are real, most are concocted but all are funny. See if you can come up with one funnier and we will publish it. - Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary
The best American tongue-in-cheek dictionary. - Dr. Goodword's Glossary of Quaint Southernisms
Dr. Goodword's shot at preserving the dialects of the region he comes from. - Historical Dictionary of American Slang
A 2500 searchable dictionary of slang with dates that tell you when the slang first appeared. - IMglish Glossary (Chatroom and IM shorthand with Emoticons)
Shorten your messages using the new language of IMglish. - Corrected Glossary of Phobias
Don't go without a phobia another day: Dr. Goodword has one for every occasion.
