16-letter words containing a, f, l, e
- fundamental star — one of a number of stars with positions that have been determined accurately and that are used as reference stars for the determination of positions of other celestial objects.
- fundamental unit — one of a set of unrelated units that form the basis of a system of units. For example, the metre, kilogram, and second are fundamental units of the SI system
- 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.
- funeral expenses — Funeral expenses are the costs of organizing and carrying out a funeral.
- garfield heights — a city in NE Ohio, near Cleveland.
- gas blowoff line — A gas blowoff line is a safety device to control sudden increases in pressure.
- 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.
- general factotum — a person who does all sorts of jobs; general assistant
- gentleman friend — a man with whom a woman is romantically involved; suitor.
- gentleman-farmer — a man whose wealth or income from other sources permits him to farm for pleasure rather than for basic income.
- go off the rails — If someone goes off the rails, they start to behave in a way that other people think is unacceptable or very strange, for example they start taking drugs or breaking the law.
- gold certificate — a former U.S. paper currency issued by the federal government for circulation from 1865 to 1933, equal to and redeemable for gold to a stated value.
- gold-of-pleasure — a yellow-flowered Eurasian plant, Camelina sativa, widespread as a weed, esp in flax fields, and formerly cultivated for its oil-rich seeds: family Brassicaceae (crucifers)
- golden handcuffs — payments deferred over a number of years that induce a person to stay with a particular company or in a particular job
- goosefoot family — formerly, the plant family Chenopodiaceae, characterized by often weedy herbaceous plants and shrubs having simple, usually alternate leaves, small and inconspicuous flowers, and tiny, dry fruit, and including the beet, glasswort, goosefoot, Russian thistle, saltbush, and spinach; now part of the amaranth family, Amaranthaceae.
- grim file reaper — (storage, operating system) (GFR) An ITS and LISP Machine utility to remove files according to some program-automated or semi-automatic manual procedure, especially one designed to reclaim mass storage space or reduce name-space clutter (the original GFR actually moved files to tape). See also prowler, reaper. Compare GC, which discards only provably worthless stuff.
- half life period — Physics. the time required for one half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate.
- harvest festival — religious celebration of crops gathered
- have a field day — If someone is having a field day, they are very busy doing something that they enjoy, even though it may be hurtful for other people.
- head normal form — (theory, reduction) (HNF) A term describing a lambda expression whose top level is either a variable, a data value, a built-in function applied to too few arguments, or a lambda abstraction whose body is not reducible. I.e. the top level is neither a redex nor a lambda abstraction with a reducible body. An expression in HNF may contain redexes in argument postions whereas a normal form may not. Compare Weak Head Normal Form.
- health food shop — a shop which sells health foods
- heat of solution — the heat evolved or absorbed when one mole of a substance dissolves completely in a large volume of solvent
- hell for leather — If you say that someone is going hell for leather, you are emphasizing that they are doing something or are moving very quickly and perhaps carelessly.
- hell-for-leather — characterized by reckless determination or breakneck speed: The sheriff led the posse in a hell-for-leather chase.
- high-pass filter — a filter that allows high-frequency electromagnetic signals to pass while rejecting or attenuating others below a specific value.
- hold a brief for — to argue for; champion
- hourglass figure — the shape of a woman who is well-proportioned and has a small waist
- immediate family — parents, siblings, children
- imperfectability — The quality of not being perfectable; of being forever imperfect.
- in a cleft stick — If you say that a person or organization is in a cleft stick, you mean that they are in a difficult situation which will bring them problems and harm whatever they decide to do.
- indefatigability — incapable of being tired out; not yielding to fatigue; untiring.
- infantile autism — a disorder appearing in children before the age of two and a half, characterized by lack of interest in others, impaired communication skills, and bizarre behavior, as ritualistic acts and excessive attachment to objects.
- infernal machine — a concealed or disguised explosive device intended to destroy life or property.
- infinite decimal — nonterminating decimal.
- insufferableness — The state of being insufferable.
- intentional foul — a foul deliberately committed by a defensive player to stop play, tactically conceding the penalty of having the fouled player attempt the awarded foul shots in return for possession of the ball.
- interfacial area — The interfacial area is the total area of contact between two liquids in a liquid-liquid operation.
- intestinal flora — microorganisms that normally inhabit the lumen of the intestinal tract
- irrefragableness — The quality or degree of being irrefragable.
- isle of portland — a rugged limestone peninsula in SW England, in Dorset, connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus and by Chesil Bank: the lighthouse of Portland Bill lies at the S tip; famous for the quarrying of Portland stone, a fine building material. Pop (town): 12 000 (latest est)
- ivyleaf geranium — a geranium plant, pelargonium peltatum, with trailing leaves and white, pink, red, or violet flowers
- kekule's formula — the structural formula of benzene represented as a hexagonal ring with alternate single and double bonds between the carbon atoms.
- kingdom of arles — a kingdom in SE France which had dissolved by 1378: known as the Kingdom of Burgundy until about 1200
- la rochefoucauld — François [frahn-swa] /frɑ̃ˈswa/ (Show IPA), 6th Duc de, 1613–80, French moralist and composer of epigrams and maxims.
- lady of pleasure — a prostitute.
- lady of the lake — a narrative poem (1810) by Sir Walter Scott.
- land-poor farmer — a farmer who owns much unprofitable land and lacks the money to maintain its fertility or improve it
- larger than life — If you say that someone or something is larger than life, you mean that they appear or behave in a way that seems more exaggerated or important than usual.
- larger-than-life — exceedingly imposing, impressive, or memorable, especially in appearance or forcefulness: a larger-than-life leader.