17-letter words containing a, f, r, o, s
- conscript fathers — august legislators, esp Roman senators
- contraflow system — a system of traffic lanes whose normal direction is reversed to allow traffic to move during repairs or an accident
- corporal of horse — a noncommissioned rank in the British Household Cavalry above that of sergeant and below that of staff sergeant
- creature comforts — Creature comforts are the things that you need to feel comfortable in a place, for example good food and modern equipment.
- cross of lorraine — a cross with two horizontal bars above and below the midpoint of the vertical bar, the lower longer than the upper
- damp-proof course — A damp-proof course is the same as a damp course.
- de facto standard — A widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol which has not been ratified by any official standards body, such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market share. The archetypal example of a de facto standard is the IBM PC which, despite is many glaring technical deficiencies, has gained such a large share of the personal computer market that it is now popular simply because it is popular and therefore enjoys fierce competition in pricing and software development.
- defamiliarisation — (arts) The representation of objects anew, in a way that we do not recognize, or that changes our reading of them.
- denial of service — a deliberate interruption in access to a computer system or network, esp by using multiple computers to generate an unmanageable volume of traffic (distributed denial of service)
- denial-of-service — pertaining to or being an incident in which a computer or computer network is disabled, disrupting access or service: a website hit by a denial-of-service attack; unintentional denial-of-service problems.
- deprofessionalise — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
- deprofessionalize — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
- division of labor — a production process in which a worker or group of workers is assigned a specialized task in order to increase efficiency.
- dress-down friday — In some companies employees are allowed to wear clothes that are less smart than usual on a Friday. This day is known as a dress-down Friday.
- due course of law — the regular administration of the law, according to which no citizen may be denied his or her legal rights and all laws must conform to fundamental, accepted legal principles, as the right of the accused to confront his or her accusers.
- ends of the earth — remote regions
- factory inspector — a person who inspects factories
- fairness doctrine — a policy mandated by the Federal Communications Commission, requiring radio and television stations to grant equal time to a political candidate, group, etc., to present an opposing viewpoint to one already aired.
- fall on deaf ears — the organ of hearing and equilibrium in vertebrates, in humans consisting of an external ear that gathers sound vibrations, a middle ear in which the vibrations resonate against the tympanic membrane, and a fluid-filled internal ear that maintains balance and that conducts the tympanic vibrations to the auditory nerve, which transmits them as impulses to the brain.
- fall over oneself — to do everything within one's power
- field sales force — a team of people selling a product or service in the field as opposed to over the telephone, etc
- first call on sth — If you have first call on something, you will be asked before anyone else whether you want to buy or use it.
- first commandment — “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”: first of the Ten Commandments.
- first normal form — database normalisation
- first performance — the first time that a play or concert is performed
- fish out of water — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- fitness programme — a plan to help someone improve their health and physical condition
- flash photography — photography using a momentary flash of artificial light as a source of illumination.
- flea in one's ear — a sharp rebuke
- flog a dead horse — a large, solid-hoofed, herbivorous quadruped, Equus caballus, domesticated since prehistoric times, bred in a number of varieties, and used for carrying or pulling loads, for riding, and for racing.
- fluvioterrestrial — (of animals) able to live in rivers and on land
- footmen's gallery — the rearmost section of seats in the balcony of an English theater, especially in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
- for heaven's sake — expressing frustration
- for the most part — a portion or division of a whole that is separate or distinct; piece, fragment, fraction, or section; constituent: the rear part of the house; to glue the two parts together.
- 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.
- foreign relations — (used with a singular verb) the field of foreign affairs: an expert in foreign relations.
- foreign secretary — foreign minister.
- forward contracts — Forward contracts are agreements to buy something in the future for a price that has been agreed today.
- foundation course — A foundation course is a course that you do at some colleges and universities in order to prepare yourself for a longer or more advanced course.
- four-star general — high-ranking military officer
- fourfold purchase — a tackle that is composed of a rope passed through two fourfold blocks in such a way as to provide mechanical power in the ratio of 1 to 5 or 1 to 4, depending on whether hauling is done on the running or the standing block and without considering friction. Compare tackle (def 2).
- fourier transform — a mapping of a function, as a signal, that is defined in one domain, as space or time, into another domain, as wavelength or frequency, where the function is represented in terms of sines and cosines.
- 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].
- frames per second — (unit) (fps) The unit of measurement of the frame rate of a moving image.
- francis of assisi — Saint (Giovanni Francesco Bernardone) 1182?–1226, Italian friar: founder of the Franciscan order.
- francisco pizarro — Francisco [fran-sis-koh;; Spanish frahn-thees-kaw,, -sees-] /frænˈsɪs koʊ;; Spanish frɑnˈθis kɔ,, -ˈsis-/ (Show IPA), c1470–1541, Spanish conqueror of Peru.
- frankenstein food — any foodstuff that has been genetically modified
- fraternal society — a club or other association, usually of men, having a limited membership and devoted to professional, religious, charitable, or social activities.
- french somaliland — a former name of Djibouti (def 1).
- frostbite sailing — the sport of sailing in temperate latitudes during the winter despite cold weather.