21-letter words containing a, f, l, s

fort lesley j. mcnair — a military reservation in SW Washington, D.C., on the Potomac River, SW of the Capitol.
franco-belgian system — French system.
fraudulent conversion — conversion committed with the intent to defraud
free alongside vessel — (of a shipment of goods) delivered to the dock without charge to the buyer, but excluding the cost of loading onto the vessel
fuming sulphuric acid — a mixture of pyrosulphuric acid, H2S2O7, and other condensed acids, made by dissolving sulphur trioxide in concentrated sulphuric acid
general of the armies — a special rank held by John J. Pershing, equivalent to general of the army.
have one's hands full — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
horns and halo effect — a tendency to allow one's judgement of another person, esp in a job interview, to be unduly influenced by an unfavourable (horns) or favourable (halo) first impression based on appearances
host command facility — (operating system) (HCF) Used to access IBM S/36 and AS/400 computers from a mainframe.
hubble classification — a method of classifying galaxies depending on whether they are elliptical, spiral, barred spiral, or irregular
in a class of its own — unequalled; unparalleled
infectious ectromelia — ectromelia (def 2).
inflationary universe — a version of the big bang theory in which the universe underwent very rapid growth during the first fraction of a second before it settled down to its current rate of expansion.
isolation transformer — An isolation transformer is a transformer with physically separate primary and secondary windings, that prevent it from transferring unwanted noise from the input circuit to the output windings.
jewish defense league — an organization of militant Jewish activists, founded in 1968 in the U.S. to combat anti-Semitism and defend Jewish interests worldwide. Abbr.: JDL.
joseph bonaparte gulf — an inlet of the Timor Sea in N Australia. Width: 360 km (225 miles)
knights of st columba — an international, semi-secret fraternal and charitable order for Catholic laymen, which originated in New Haven, Connecticut in 1882 (the Knights of Columbus)
lady of the camellias — French La Dame aux Camélias. a novel (1848) and play (1852) by Alexandre Dumas fils.
lady windermere's fan — a comedy (1892) by Oscar Wilde.
lafayette, marquis de — Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier [ma-ree zhaw-zef pawl eev rawk zheel-ber dy maw-tyey] /maˈri ʒɔˈzɛf pɔl iv rɔk ʒilˈbɛr dü mɔˈtyeɪ/ (Show IPA), Marquis de. Also, La Fayette. 1757–1834, French soldier, statesman, and liberal leader, who served in the American Revolutionary Army as aide-de-camp to General Washington, and took a leading part in the French revolutions of 1789 and 1830.
lafcadio's adventures — French Les Caves du Vatican. a novel (1914) by André Gide.
law of thermodynamics — any of three principles variously stated in equivalent forms, being the principle that the change of energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work done (first law of thermodynamics) the principle that no cyclic process is possible in which heat is absorbed from a reservoir at a single temperature and converted completely into mechanical work (second law of thermodynamics) and the principle that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations (third law of thermodynamics)
league of arab states — Arab League.
leaning tower of pisa — a round, marble campanile in Pisa, Italy, begun in 1174 and now 17 feet (5.2 meters) out of the perpendicular in its height of 179 feet (54 meters).
learning difficulties — difficulty experienced in reaching the average standard of people of the same age group as regards intellectual and cognitive skills and performance
least significant bit — (data) (LSB) Bit zero, the bit of a binary number giving the number of ones, the last or rightmost bit when the number is written in the usual way.
lender of last resort — the central bank of a country with authority for controlling its banking system
level of significance — significance level.
like a blue-arsed fly — in a state of frenzied activity
linear transformation — linear map
liquefied natural gas — a mixture of various gases, esp methane, liquefied under pressure for transportation and used as an engine fuel
lost-and-found column — a column in a newspaper that carries advertisements from people who have lost or found things
lotus of the good law — Saddharma-Pundarika.
lotus-of-the-true-law — a Mahayana sutra, forming with its references to Amida and the Bodhisattvas the basis for the doctrine that there is something of Buddha in everyone, so that salvation is universally available: a central text of Mahayana Buddhism.
macintosh file system — (file system) A file on the Macintosh consists of two parts, called forks. The "data fork" contains the data which would normally be stored in the file on other operating systems. The "resource fork" contains a collection of arbitrary attribute/value pairs, including program segments, icon bitmaps, and parametric values. Yet more information regarding Macintosh files is stored by the Finder in a hidden file, called the "Desktop Database". Because of the complications in storing different parts of a Macintosh file in non-Macintosh file systems that only handle consecutive data in one part, it is common to only send the Data fork or to convert the Macintosh file into some other format before transferring it.
magnetic flux density — Also called magnetic flux density. a vector quantity used as a measure of a magnetic field. Symbol: B.
magnetofluid dynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
make a pig of oneself — If you say that someone is making a pig of themselves, you are criticizing them for eating a very large amount at one meal.
make up for lost time — compensate for past inaction
make yourself at home — settle in
modulus of elasticity — the ratio of the stress applied to a body or substance to the resulting strain within the elastic limit
mother-of-pearl glass — an American art glassware having colored glass set into indentations in a thickness of opaque glass, the whole covered with clear glass and etched slightly with acid.
muon-catalysed fusion — an experimental form of nuclear fusion in which hydrogen and deuterium muonic atoms are formed. Because the mass of the muon is much larger than that of the electron, the atoms are smaller, and the nuclei are close enough for fusion to occur
nellis air force base — the largest air base in the U.S. Air Force's Tactical Air Command, located near Las Vegas, Nev., and developed from what began in 1941 as a U.S. Army Air Corps field.
nightmare file system — Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a higher spl level). Then another machine tries to reach either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is frozen - worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great misfeature). ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of Unix's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none of these problems in the early 1970s. See also broadcast storm.
nitrosylsulfuric acid — a clear, straw-colored, oily, corrosive liquid, HNO 5 S, used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes.
performance appraisal — the assessment, at regular intervals, of an employee's performance at work
peroxydisulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 2).
piero della francesca — Piero della [pee-air-oh del-uh;; Italian pye-raw del-lah] /piˈɛər oʊ ˈdɛl ə;; Italian ˈpyɛ rɔ ˈdɛl lɑ/ (Show IPA), (Piero dei Franceschi) c1420–92, Italian painter.
place of safety order — (in Britain) under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, an order granted by a justice to a person or agency granting authority to detain a child or young person and take him or her to a place of safety for not more than 28 days, because of the child's actual or likely ill-treatment or neglect, etc

Was this page helpful?

Yes No

Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page

Tell us why?