19-letter words containing a, f, t, c
- halt and catch fire — (humour, processor) (HCF) Any of several undocumented and semi-mythical machine instructions with destructive side-effects, supposedly included for test purposes on several well-known architectures going as far back as the IBM 360. The Motorola 6800 microprocessor was the first for which an HCF opcode became widely known. This instruction caused the processor to read every memory location sequentially until reset.
- hatfield-mccoy feud — a blood feud between two mountain clans on the West Virginia–Kentucky border, the Hatfields of West Virginia and the McCoys of Kentucky, that grew out of their being on opposite sides during the Civil War and was especially violent during 1880–90.
- hospital facilities — the equipment and services provided by a hospital
- hyperfocal distance — the distance, at a given f number, between a camera lens and the nearest point (hyperfocal point) having satisfactory definition when focused at infinity.
- identification card — a card giving identifying data about a person, as full name, address, age, and color of hair and eyes, and often containing a photograph: for use as identification at a place of employment, school, club, etc.
- identification mark — barcode or serial number
- immigration officer — official administrating incoming foreigners
- in commemoration of — in remembrance of
- in consideration of — the act of considering; careful thought; meditation; deliberation: I will give your project full consideration.
- incomplete fracture — a fracture extending partly across the bone.
- index of refraction — a number indicating the speed of light in a given medium as either the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to that in the given medium (absolute index of refraction) or the ratio of the speed of light in a specified medium to that in the given medium (relative index of refraction) Symbol: n.
- index-tracking fund — an investment fund that is administered so that its value changes in line with a given share index
- information content — the amount of information in something
- information officer — someone whose job is to give information to people
- information science — the study of the nature, collection, and management of information and of its uses, especially involving computer storage and retrievals.
- information service — a service which provides information
- intentional fallacy — (in literary criticism) an assertion that the intended meaning of the author is not the only or most important meaning; a fallacy involving an assessment of a literary work based on the author's intended meaning rather than on actual response to the work.
- interactive fiction — an adventure or mystery story, usually presented as a video game or book, in which the player or reader is given choices as to how the storyline is to develop or the mystery is to be solved.
- interesterification — transesterification.
- interface architect — An interface builder for Motif distributed by Hewlett-Packard (see UIMX).
- interfacial tension — the surface tension at the interface of two liquids.
- interferometrically — By means of interferometry.
- italian east africa — a former Italian territory in E Africa, formed in 1936 by the merging of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland with newly conquered Ethiopia: taken by the British Imperial forces 1941.
- jacques montgolfier — Jacques Étienne [zhahk ey-tyen] /ʒɑk eɪˈtyɛn/ (Show IPA), 1745–99, and his brother Joseph Michel [zhaw-zef mee-shel] /ʒɔˈzɛf miˈʃɛl/ (Show IPA) 1740–1810, French aeronauts: inventors of the first practical balloon 1783.
- juan de fuca strait — strait between Vancouver Island and NW Wash.: c. 100 mi (161 km) long
- lagrangian function — kinetic potential.
- land of enchantment — New Mexico (used as a nickname).
- landrum-griffin act — an act of Congress (1959) outlawing secondary boycotts, requiring public disclosure of the financial records of unions, and guaranteeing the use of secret ballots in union voting.
- leading aircraftman — the rank above aircraftman
- leading coefficient — the coefficient of the term of highest degree in a given polynomial. 5 is the leading coefficient in 5 x 3 + 3 x 2 − 2 x + 1.
- left-luggage locker — a coin-operated locker in which luggage can be left
- left-luggage office — a checkroom for baggage.
- lift the curtain on — to begin
- line of demarcation — a separation between things deemed to be distinct
- logical shift right — logical shift
- loss-of-containment — Loss-of-containment happens when a fluid which is usually contained somewhere escapes from that place.
- magnetomotive force — a scalar quantity that is a measure of the sources of magnetic flux in a magnetic circuit. Abbreviation: mmf.
- malice aforethought — a predetermination to commit an unlawful act without just cause or provocation (applied chiefly to cases of first-degree murder).
- manned space flight — space travel in vehicles with a human crew
- manufacturing plant — factory
- maratha confederacy — a loose league of states in central and western India, c1750–1818.
- mary wollstonecraft — Mary (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin) 1759–97, English author and feminist (mother of Mary Shelley).
- mayor of the palace — one of a line of hereditary administrative lieutenants to the Merovingian kings who eventually took over royal function and title in the Frankish kingdoms; a palatine.
- means of production — resources: equipment, workers
- medical certificate — a document stating the result of a satisfactory medical examination
- miracle of st. mark — a painting (1548) by Tintoretto.
- mutual fund company — a company that sells and manages mutual funds
- nasty piece of work — malicious person
- neats vs. scruffies — (artificial intelligence, jargon) The label used to refer to one of the continuing holy wars in artificial intelligence research. This conflict tangles together two separate issues. One is the relationship between human reasoning and AI; "neats" tend to try to build systems that "reason" in some way identifiably similar to the way humans report themselves as doing, while "scruffies" profess not to care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the least as long as it works. More importantly, neats tend to believe that logic is king, while scruffies favour looser, more ad-hoc methods driven by empirical knowledge. To a neat, scruffy methods appear promiscuous, successful only by accident and not productive of insights about how intelligence actually works; to a scruffy, neat methods appear to be hung up on formalism and irrelevant to the hard-to-capture "common sense" of living intelligences.
- nerve growth factor — a protein that promotes the growth, organization, and maintenance of sympathetic and some sensory nerve cells. Abbreviation: NGF.