16-letter words containing a, c, n, t
- fluorescent lamp — a tubular electric discharge lamp in which light is produced by the fluorescence of phosphors coating the inside of the tube.
- food intolerance — an intolerance of a specific type of food, causing an adverse reaction
- forced vibration — Forced vibration is a type of vibration in which a force is repeatedly applied to a mechanical system.
- formation packer — A formation packer is a substance that is used as a seal between the casing and the borehole so that part of the hole can be tested.
- forward contract — a contract to buy or sell an asset at a point in the future at a previously agreed price
- francis townsend — Francis Everett, 1867–1960, U.S. physician and proposer of the Townsend plan.
- frankfurt school — a school of thought, founded at the University of Frankfurt in 1923 by Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and others, derived from Marxist, Freudian, and Hegelian theory
- free association — the uncensored expression of the ideas, impressions, etc., passing through the mind of the analysand, a technique used to facilitate access to the unconscious.
- friction gearing — wheels or disks transmitting power by means of frictional contact.
- front and center — If a topic or question is front and center, a lot of attention is being paid to it or a lot of people are talking about it.
- functional group — a group of atoms responsible for the characteristic behavior of the class of compounds in which the group occurs, as the hydroxyl group in alcohols.
- functional shift — a change in the grammatical function of a word, as in the use of the noun input as a verb or the noun fun as an adjective.
- functional water — water containing additives that provide extra nutritional value
- fundamentalistic — Fundamentalist.
- funeral director — a person, usually a licensed embalmer, who supervises or conducts the preparation of the dead for burial and directs or arranges funerals.
- galvanic battery — battery (def 1a).
- gamma correction — (hardware) Adjustments applied during the display of a digital representation of colour on a screen in order to compensate for the fact that the Cathode Ray Tubes used in computer monitors (and televisions) produce a light intensity which is not proportional to the input voltage. The light intensity is actually proportional to the input voltage raised to the inverse power of some constant, called gamma. Its value varies from one display to another, but is usually around 2.5. Because it is more intuitive for the colour components (red, green and blue) to be varied linearly in the computer, the actual voltages sent to the monitor by the display hardware must be adjusted in order to make the colour component intensity on the screen proportional to the value stored in the computer's display memory. This process is most easily achieved by a dedicated module in the display hardware which simply scales the outputs of the display memory before sending them to the digital-to-analogue converters. More expensive graphics cards and workstations (particularly those used for CAD applications) will have a gamma correction facility. In combination with the "white-point" gamma correction is used to achieve precise colour matching.
- garment district — an area in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City, including portions of Seventh Avenue and Broadway between 34th and 40th Streets and the streets intersecting them, that contains many factories, showrooms, etc., related to the design, manufacture, and wholesale distribution of clothing.
- gas liquefaction — Gas liquefaction is the process of refrigerating a gas to a temperature that is below its critical temperature in order to form a liquid.
- gaudí (i cornet) — An‧to‧nio (ɑnˈtɔnjɔ ) ; änt^ōˈny^ō) 1852-1926; Sp. architect
- general election — U.S. Politics. a regularly scheduled local, state, or national election in which voters elect officeholders. Compare primary (def 15). a state or national election, as opposed to a local election.
- general electric — (company) (GE) A US company that manufactured computers from 1956 until 1970, when it sold its computer division to Honeywell and left the computer business. Notable GE computers were the GE-265, which supported the Dartmouth Time-sharing System (DTSS), and the GE-645 used for Multics development. See also GCOS. Not to be confused with the General Electric Company (GEC) in the UK (where FOLDOC's first seeds were sown).
- general factotum — a person who does all sorts of jobs; general assistant
- general practice — family practice.
- genetic material — material that stores genetic information; DNA
- giant's causeway — a large body of basalt, unusual in displaying perfect columnar jointing, exposed on a promontory on the northern coast of Northern Ireland.
- global community — the people or nations of the world, considered as being closely connected by modern telecommunications and as being economically, socially, and politically interdependent
- gnu archive site — (body) The main GNU FTP archive is on gnu.org but copies ("mirrors") of some or all of the files there are also held on many other computers around the world. To avoid overloading gnu.org and the Internet you should FTP files from the machine closest to yours. Look for a directory like /pub/gnu, /mirrors/gnu, /systems/gnu or /archives/gnu.
- golden parachute — an employment contract or agreement guaranteeing a key executive of a company substantial severance pay and other financial benefits in the event of job loss caused by the company's being sold or merged.
- granulocytopenia — a diminished number of granulocytes in the blood, which occurs in certain forms of anaemia
- gravity decanter — A gravity decanter is a vessel or stage in which two liquids of different densities are allowed to separate by gravity.
- great-grandchild — a grandchild of one's son or daughter.
- great-grandniece — a granddaughter of one's nephew or niece.
- great-granduncle — an uncle of one's grandfather or grandmother.
- grid declination — the angular difference between true north and grid north on a map
- ground substance — Also called matrix. the homogeneous substance in which the fibers and cells of connective tissue are embedded.
- growth substance — any substance, produced naturally by a plant or manufactured commercially, that, in very low concentrations, affects plant growth; a plant hormone
- guaranteed stock — stock for which dividends are guaranteed by a company other than the one issuing the stock.
- gun control laws — the laws that restrict the possession and use of guns
- hacienda heights — a city in SW California, near Los Angeles.
- hailing distance — the distance within which the human voice can be heard: They sailed within hailing distance of the island.
- hair conditioner — a substance used, often after shampooing, to detangle and improve the condition of the hair. Like shampoo, it is applied to wet hair and then rinsed out after applying.
- hamming distance — (data) The minimum number of bits that must be changed in order to convert one bit string into another. Named after the mathematician Richard Hamming.
- hanseatic league — a medieval league of towns of northern Germany and adjacent countries for the promotion and protection of commerce.
- haptic interface — (interface, hardware) A touch interface to a computer that provides feedback, such as a data glove.
- have the decency — If you say that someone did not have the decency to do something, you are criticizing them because there was a particular action which they did not do but which you believe they ought to have done.
- hawthorne effect — a positive change in the performance of a group of persons taking part in an experiment or study due to their perception of being singled out for special consideration.
- hay-scented fern — a fern, Dennstaedtia punctilobula, of eastern North America, having brittle, yellow-green fronds.
- health education — education that aims to give people the information they need to live healthily
- health inspector — a public employee who inspects places such as restaurants, shops, factories etc to make sure they are hygienic and do not pose any dangers to health