15-letter words containing a, f, m
- magnesioferrite — (mineralogy) A magnesium iron oxide mineral, a member of the magnetite series of spinels, which forms black metallic octahedral crystals.
- magnolia family — the plant family Magnoliaceae, characterized by evergreen or deciduous trees and shrubs having simple, alternate leaves, often showy flowers with a spiral arrangement of their floral parts, and conelike fruit, and including the cucumber tree, magnolia, tulip tree, and umbrella tree.
- mahogany family — the plant family Meliaceae, characterized by tropical and subtropical trees and shrubs having alternate, pinnate leaves, usually branched clusters of flowers, and fruit in the form of a berry or leathery capsule, and including the chinaberry, cedars of the genus Cedrela, and mahoganies of the genera Swietenia and Khaya.
- maid of orléans — Saint ("the Maid of Orléans") 1412?–31, French national heroine and martyr who raised the siege of Orléans.
- maidenhair fern — any fern of the cosmopolitan genus Adiantum, esp A. capillis-veneris, having delicate fan-shaped fronds with small pale-green leaflets: family Adiantaceae
- mail order firm — a company that sells goods by mail order
- make a habit of — If you make a habit of doing something, you do it regularly or often.
- make a hames of — to spoil through clumsiness or ineptitude
- make a play for — to act the part of (a person or character) in a dramatic performance; portray: to play Lady Macbeth.
- make a point of — a sharp or tapering end, as of a dagger.
- make a thing of — to make a fuss about; exaggerate the importance of
- make capital of — to get advantage from
- make certain of — to ensure (that one will get something); confirm
- make it hot for — having or giving off heat; having a high temperature: a hot fire; hot coffee.
- make mention of — allude to
- make nothing of — no thing; not anything; naught: to say nothing.
- make the effort — try
- make tracks for — to go or head towards
- malconformation — Imperfect, disproportionate, or abnormal formation; disproportion of parts.
- malpighian tuft — glomerulus (def 2).
- man of his word — a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning. Words are composed of one or more morphemes and are either the smallest units susceptible of independent use or consist of two or three such units combined under certain linking conditions, as with the loss of primary accent that distinguishes black·bird· from black· bird·. Words are usually separated by spaces in writing, and are distinguished phonologically, as by accent, in many languages.
- man of the hour — a man who is honored by a group.
- man-made fabric — a type of fabric that is made artificially, such as polyester or rayon, rather than occurring naturally, like cotton or wool
- man-of-war bird — frigate bird.
- man-of-war fish — a small, tropical fish, Nomeus gronovii, that lives among the tentacles of the Portuguese man-of-war.
- marfan syndrome — a hereditary disorder characterized by abnormally elongated bones, especially in the extremities, hypermotility of the joints, and circulatory and eye abnormalities.
- margaritiferous — yielding or wearing pearls
- margin of error — statistics: variance
- marie de france — flourished 12th century, French poet in England.
- matron of honor — a married woman acting as the principal attendant of the bride at a wedding.
- medal for merit — a medal awarded by the U.S. to a civilian for distinguished service to the country: discontinued after World War II.
- medical officer — a doctor of medicine who serves in the armed forces in a medical capacity
- member of staff — an employee of a particular organization
- menomonee falls — a city in SE Wisconsin, NW of Milwaukee.
- mess of pottage — a material gain involving the sacrifice of a higher value
- metainformation — metadata
- mezzanine floor — intermediate level in a building
- michael faraday — Michael, 1791–1867, English physicist and chemist: discoverer of electromagnetic induction.
- microfiltration — Filtration through a microporous membrane.
- micromicrofarad — picofarad. Symbol: μμF.
- microsoft basic — (language) (MS-BASIC) A dialect of BASIC from Microsoft, originally developed by Bill Gates in a garage back in the CP/M days. It was originally known as GWBasic, then QBASIC and finally MS-BASIC. When the MS-DOS operating system came out, it incorporated the GWBASIC.EXE or BASICA.EXE interpreters. GWBASIC ("Gee Whiz") incorporated graphics and a screen editor and was compatible with earlier BASICs. QBASIC was more sophisticated. Version 4.5 had a full screen editor, debugger and compiler. The compiler could also produce executable files but to run these a utility program (BRUN44.EXE) had to be present. Thus source code could be kept private. From DOS 5.0 or 6.0 onward, MS-BASIC was standard. Version 1.1 produced stand-alone executables and could display graphics.
- milk of almonds — almond milk.
- milkweed family — the plant family Asclepiadaceae, characterized by herbaceous plants, shrubs, and vines having simple, opposite or whorled leaves, usually milky juice, umbellike clusters of small flowers, and long pods that split open to release tufted, airborne seeds, and including the anglepod, butterfly weed, milkweed, stephanotis, and wax plant.
- mis-informative — to give false or misleading information to.
- moccasin flower — the lady's-slipper.
- molecular knife — a segment of genetic material that inhibits the reproduction of the AIDS virus by breaking up specific areas of the virus's genes.
- moreton bay fig — a large Australian fig tree, Ficus macrophylla, having glossy leaves and smooth bark
- mortgage relief — (formerly) a reduction of tax on income being used to pay off a mortgage
- mother of pearl — a hard, iridescent substance that forms the inner layer of certain mollusk shells, used for making buttons, beads, etc.; nacre.
- mother-of-pearl — a hard, iridescent substance that forms the inner layer of certain mollusk shells, used for making buttons, beads, etc.; nacre.