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17-letter words containing a, d, l, i

  • downwardly-mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
  • drained of colour — colourless
  • drilling platform — a structure, either fixed to the sea bed or mobile, which supports the machinery and equipment (the drilling rig), together with the stores, required for digging an offshore oil well
  • drink like a fish — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
  • drive to the wall — to force into an awkward situation
  • drive up the wall — to cause to become crazy or furious
  • drive-by download — an incidence of an unwanted program being automatically downloaded to a computer, often without the user's knowledge
  • duality principle — the principle that a mathematical duality exists under certain conditions.
  • dull as dishwater — water in which dishes are, or have been, washed.
  • dutch elm disease — a disease of elms characterized by wilting, yellowing, and falling of the leaves and caused by a fungus, Ceratostomella ulmi, transmitted by bark beetles.
  • dynamically typed — dynamic typing
  • dynamics analyzer — (language)   (DYANA) An early language specialised for vibrational and other dynamic physical systems.
  • early closing day — a day on which most shops in a town or area close after lunch
  • east indian lotus — a southern Asian lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, of the water lily family, having fragrant pink or rose flowers.
  • eat flaming death — (humour, abuse)   A construction popularised among hackers by the infamous CPU Wars comic; supposedly derive from a famously turgid line in a WWII-era anti-Nazi propaganda comic that ran "Eat flaming death, non-Aryan mongrels!" or something of the sort (however, it is also reported that the Firesign Theater's 1975 album "In The Next World, You're On Your Own" included the phrase "Eat flaming death, fascist media pigs"; this may have been an influence). Used in humorously overblown expressions of hostility. "Eat flaming death, EBCDIC users!"
  • economic blockade — an embargo on trade with a country, esp one which prohibits receipt of exports from that country, with the intention of disrupting the country's economy
  • edward fitzgerald — Edward, 1809–83, English poet: translator of drama and poetry, especially of Omar Khayyám.
  • electric retarder — An electric retarder is an electromagnetic transmission brake that is only effective when a vehicle is moving.
  • electricity board — a company which supplies electricity
  • electrocardiogram — A record or display of a person’s heartbeat produced by electrocardiography.
  • emergency landing — an occasion when a place is forced to land: for example, because of a mechanical fault, bad weather, terrorism, etc.
  • epicycloidal gear — a gear of an epicyclic train
  • epidemiologically — With regard to epidemiology.
  • equalization fund — a monetary reserve established by a country to provide funds for maintaining the official exchange rates of its currency by equalizing the buying and selling of foreign exchange.
  • esprit d'escalier — clever repartee one thinks of too late
  • ethinyloestradiol — Alternative form of ethinylestradiol.
  • exception handler — Special code which is called when an exception occurs during the execution of a program. If the programmer does not provide a handler for a given exception, a built-in system exception handler will usually be called resulting in abortion of the program run and some kind of error indication being returned to the user. Examples of exception handler mechanisms are Unix's signal calls and Lisp's catch and throw.
  • exceptional child — a gifted child
  • falkland islander — a person from the Falkland Islands
  • falling diphthong — a diphthong in which the first of the two apparent vocalic elements is of greater stress or sonority and the second is of lesser stress or sonority, as in (ī), (ou), (oi), etc.
  • false bread-fruit — ceriman.
  • fear and loathing — (Hunter S. Thompson) A state inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards that are totally brain-damaged but ubiquitous - Intel 8086s, COBOL, EBCDIC, or any IBM machine except the Rios (also known as the RS/6000).
  • feasibility study — (systems analysis)   Part of the systems develpment life cycle which aims to determine whether it is sensible to develop some system. The most popular model of feasibility study is "TELOS", standing for Technical, Economic, Legal, Operational, Schedule. Technical Feasibility: does the technology exist to implement the proposed system? Is it a practical proposition? Economic Feasibility: is the system cost-effective? Do benefits outweigh costs? Legal Feasibility: is there any conflict between the proposed system and legal requirements, e.g. the Data Protection Act? Operational Feasibility: are the current work practices and procedures adequate to support the new system? Schedule Feasibility: can the system be developed in time? After the feasibility study, the requirements analysis should be carried out.
  • feint-ruled paper — writing paper with light horizontal lines printed across at regular intervals
  • fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
  • field sales force — a team of people selling a product or service in the field as opposed to over the telephone, etc
  • financial adviser — A financial adviser is someone whose job it is to advise people about financial products and services.
  • find fault (with) — to seek and point out faults (of); complain (about); criticize
  • first-aid classes — classes which teach people how to give immediate medical help in an emergency
  • flagrante delicto — Law. in the very act of committing the offense.
  • floating dry dock — a dock that floats and can be lowered in the water for the entrance of a ship, and then raised for use as a dry dock
  • fluid lubrication — lubrication in which bearing surfaces are separated by an oil film sustained by the motion of the parts
  • folie de grandeur — a delusion of grandeur; megalomania.
  • fore-and-aft sail — any of various sails, as jib-headed sails, gaff sails, lugsails, lateen sails, spritsails, staysails, and jibs, that do not set on yards and whose normal position, when not trimmed, is in a fore-and-aft direction amidships.
  • fractal dimension — (mathematics)   A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by "measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object. Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object. For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by repeatedly replacing ___ with _/\_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/\_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
  • frederick william — 1795–1861, king of Prussia 1840–61 (brother of William I of Prussia).
  • french somaliland — a former name of Djibouti (def 1).
  • galactic latitude — the angular distance from the galactic equator of a point on the celestial sphere.
  • galapagos islands — a group of 15 islands in the Pacific west of Ecuador, of which they form a province: discovered (1535) by the Spanish; main settlement on San Cristóbal. Pop: 18 640 (2001). Area: 7844 sq km (3028 sq miles)
  • garden heliotrope — the common valerian, Valeriana officinalis, especially when cultivated as an ornamental.
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