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25-letter words containing a, f, i, n, c

  • five nations championship — a former annual competition involving the national sides of England, France, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; replaced by the Six Nations Championship in 2000
  • flexible spending account — an account to which an employee contributes a portion of earnings to pay for certain expenses such as medical and dependent care: contributions are exempt from payroll taxes. Abbreviation: FSA.
  • franked investment income — (formerly) dividends from one UK company received by another on which the paying company had paid corporation tax so that the receiving company had no corporation tax to pay: discontinued from 1999
  • free central placentation — a type of placenta structure in an ovary, in which the ovules cluster freely around a columnlike central placenta which is attached at the base of the ovary
  • functional representation — representation in a governing body on the basis of social class or occupation.
  • further education college — (in Britain) an establishment that offers formal education beyond school and which is not a university or polytechnic
  • general accounting office — an independent auditing and accounting agency that assists Congress and government departments and agencies and settles claims for the federal government. Abbreviation: GAO.
  • genetically modified food — a food that contains ingredients made from genetically modified plants or animals
  • gensym standard interface — (programming)   (GSI) A set of C libraries and programming tools used to interface G2 to external systems. Commercially available bridges are available to SCADA systems and PLCs.
  • graphic display interface — (hardware)   (GDI) graphics adaptor.
  • graphics interface format — (spelling)   You mean "Graphics Interchange Format".
  • greatest-integer function — the function that assigns to each real number the greatest integer less than or equal to the number. Symbol: [ x ].
  • homothetic transformation — similarity transformation (def 1).
  • homothetic-transformation — Also called homothetic transformation. a mapping of a set by which each element in the set is mapped into a positive constant multiple of itself, the same constant being used for all elements.
  • human-factors engineering — an applied science that coordinates the design of devices, systems, and physical working conditions with the capacities and requirements of the worker.
  • in (or out of) character — consistent with (or inconsistent with) the role or general character
  • industrial life insurance — life insurance having a relatively low face value in which premiums are paid weekly or monthly to an agent.
  • infantry fighting vehicle — a heavily armored combat vehicle, as a tank, used to carry infantry into battle and provide support. Abbreviation: IFV.
  • infrared data association — (standard, body)   (IrDA) A non-profit trade association providing standards to ensure the quality and interoperability of infrared (IR) hardware. The association currently has a membership of over 160 companies from around the world, representing computer and telecommunications hardware, software, components and adapters. IrDA typically uses direct infrared i.e. point-to-point, line-of-sight, one-to-one communications. The standards include: IrDA Data (SIR, FIR, VFIR), IrDA Control, and AIR. Ports built to the above standards can be found in products such as PDAs, Palm devices, printers, desktop adapters, notebooks, and digital cameras.
  • japanese flowering cherry — any of various ornamental hybrid cherry trees developed in Japan, having white or pink blossoms and inedible fruit.
  • land of the little sticks — the part of the north of Canada that lies south of the tree line but contains only stunted evergreens or dwarf deciduous trees.
  • loosening of associations — a type of formal thought disorder characterized by shifts from one topic to another in ways that are obliquely related or completely unrelated, occurring as a common symptom of mania and schizophrenia.
  • maintenance of membership — an arrangement or agreement between an employer and a labor union by which employees who are members of the union at the time the agreement is made, or who subsequently join, must either remain members until the agreement expires, or be discharged.
  • massacre of the innocents — the slaughter of all the young male children of Bethlehem at Herod's command in an attempt to destroy Jesus (Matthew 2:16–18)
  • memorandum of association — a document giving details such as the company's name, the purpose of the company, and the address of its registered office that is legally required when incorporating a company in certain countries such as the UK
  • message passing interface — (communications, protocol)   A de facto standard for communication among the nodes running a parallel program on a distributed memory system. MPI is a library of routines that can be called from Fortran and C programs. MPI's advantage over older message passing libraries is that it is both portable (because MPI has been implemented for almost every distributed memory architecture) and fast (because each implementation is optimised for the hardware it runs on).
  • metal-free phthalocyanine — phthalocyanine (def 1).
  • minimal brain dysfunction — (no longer in technical use) attention deficit disorder.
  • mpc level 1 specification — (multimedia)   The original Multimedia Personal Computer specification. Minimum requirements are a 16 MHz 386SX with 2 megabytes of RAM, a 30 MB hard disk drive, and a CD-ROM drive with a sustained data transfer rate of 150 KB/s at no more than 40% of CPU bandwidth and reading at least 16 KB blocks. The maximum average seek time is 1 second and the Mean Time Between Failure 10000 hours. Capability Mode 1. The computer must have 8-bit digital sound and an 8-note synthesizer with MIDI playback. Sample rates of 22.05 and 11.025 kHz must be supported by no more than 10% of CPU bandwidth, preferably 44.1 kHz at no more than 15% of CPU bandwidth. The synthesizer must support multi-voice, multi-timbral generation of six simultaneous melody notes and two simultaneous percussive notes with internal mixing capabilities to combine input from three sources and present the output as a stereo, line-level audio signal at the back panel. The video display must have a resolution of at least 640 x 480 in 16 colours. MIDI, I/O, and joystick ports must be previded. Compare MPC Level 2 Specification.
  • mpc level 2 specification — (multimedia)   An improved version of the MPC Level 1 Specification for Multimedia Personal Computers. Minimum requirements are a 25 Mhz 486SX with 4 MB of RAM and a 160 MB hard disk drive. The CD-ROM drive must support a sustained data transfer rate of 300 KB/s using at most 60% of CPU bandwidth on 16 KB minimum block read size. Its average seek time must be 400 milliseconds maximum. Capability Mode 1, Mode 2 form 1, Mode 2 form 2, Multisession. It must be CD-ROM XA-ready. The computer must have 16-bit digital sound, an 8-note synthesizer, and MIDI playback. A sample rate of 44.1 kHz must be available on stereo channels with more than 15% of CPU bandwidth. A video display with a resolution of 640 x 480 in 65,536 colours, and MIDI, I/O, and joystick ports must be provided.
  • nail in the coffin of sth — If you say that one thing is a nail in the coffin of another thing, you mean that it will help bring about its end or failure.
  • non-uniform memory access — (architecture)   (NUMA) A memory architecture, used in multiprocessors, where the access time depends on the memory location. A processor can access its own local memory faster than non-local memory (memory which is local to another processor or shared between processors).
  • northern corn-leaf blight — northern leaf blight.
  • nuffield teaching project — (in Britain) a complete school programme in mathematics, science, languages, etc, with suggested complementary theory and practical work
  • of someone's acquaintance — A person of your acquaintance is someone who you have met and know.
  • office of war information — OWI.
  • pci configuration utility — (tool)   (PCU) A piece of software for configuring a specific PCI hardware device.
  • personal flotation device — a life preserver, life jacket, or other device for keeping a person afloat in the water. Abbreviation: PFD.
  • point-and-drool interface — (abuse)   (Or "point-and-grunt interface") A parody of "point-and-shoot interface", describing a windows, icons, and mouse-based (WIMP) graphical user interface. The implication, of course, is that such an interface is only suitable for idiots. See for the rest of us, WIMP, drool-proof paper.
  • point-and-grunt interface — point-and-drool interface
  • principal nursing officer — a grade of nurse concerned with administration in the British National Health Service
  • principle of least action — the principle that motion between any two points in a conservative dynamical system is such that the action has a minimum value with respect to all paths between the points that correspond to the same energy
  • principle of virtual work — the principle that the total work done by all forces on a system in static equilibrium is zero for a set of infinitesimally small displacements.
  • public key infrastructure — (cryptography, communications)   (PKI) A system of public key encryption using digital certificates from Certificate Authorities and other registration authorities that verify and authenticate the validity of each party involved in an electronic transaction. PKIs are currently evolving and there is no single PKI nor even a single agreed-upon standard for setting up a PKI. However, nearly everyone agrees that reliable PKIs are necessary before electronic commerce can become widespread.
  • single document interface — (programming)   (SDI) A limitation applying to an application program that only shows a single windows giving a view of one document at a time. The opposite is Multiple Document Interface (MDI).
  • single wingback formation — an offensive formation in which the wingback lines up outside of and about one yard behind an end, the quarterback lines up lateral to the wingback but about midway between the same end and the center, the fullback is three or four yards behind the middle of the line, and the tailback lines up one yard behind the fullback on the other side of the line from the wingback and quarterback.
  • single-lens reflex camera — a camera in which the image appears on a ground-glass viewer (focusing screen) after being reflected by a mirror or after passing through a prism or semitransparent glass; in one type (single-lens reflex camera) light passes through the same lens to both the ground glass and the film, while in another type (twin-lens reflex camera) light passes through one lens (viewing lens) to the ground glass and through a second lens (taking lens) to the film, the lenses being mechanically coupled for focusing.
  • the scholastic profession — the profession of teaching
  • time domain reflectometer — (hardware, networking)   (TDR) An electronic device for detecting and locating short- or open-circuits in an Ethernet cable. TDRs can also measure how the characteristic impedance of a line varies along its length.
  • to catch sight of someone — If you catch sight of someone, you suddenly see them, often briefly.
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