16-letter words containing a, r, e, c, t
- electrotherapist — One who administers electrotherapy.
- elegiac quatrain — a poetic stanza consisting of four lines of iambic pentameter rhyming alternately.
- embarkation card — an official document that allows travellers to leave a country by boarding a ship or plane
- endarterectomies — Plural form of endarterectomy.
- endocranial cast — a cast made of the inside of a cranial cavity to show the size and shape of the brain: used esp in anthropology
- entente cordiale — a friendly understanding between political powers: less formal than an alliance
- epigrammatically — In a manner suggesting of an epigram.
- escalator clause — a clause in a contract stipulating an adjustment in wages, prices, etc, in the event of specified changes in conditions, such as a large rise in the cost of living or price of raw materials
- ethnocentrically — In an ethnocentric way.
- ethnographically — Regarding the ethnography (of a region).
- evacuation route — An evacuation route is a way to get out of a building if there is an emergency, such as a fire.
- exclamation mark — (character) The character "!" with ASCII code 33. Common names: bang; pling; excl (/eks'kl/); shriek; ITU-T: exclamation mark, exclamation point (US). Rare: factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey; wham; eureka; soldier; INTERCAL: spark-spot. The Commonwealth Hackish, "pling", is common among Acorn Archimedes owners. Bang is more common in the USA. The occasional CMU usage, "shriek", is also used by APL fans and mathematicians, especially category theorists. Exclamation mark is used in C and elsewhere as the logical negation operation (NOT).
- exotic shorthair — a short-haired variety of domestic cat with a stocky body, developed through crossing Persian cats with American shorthairs
- expectant mother — a pregnant woman
- experience table — an actuarial table, esp a mortality table based on past statistics
- extrachromosomal — Happening outside a chromosome.
- extracorporeally — Outside the body.
- extrinsic factor — vitamin B12
- face recognition — the ability of a computer to scan, store, and recognize human faces for use in identifying people
- factor of safety — the ratio of the maximum stress that a structural part or other piece of material can withstand to the maximum stress estimated for it in the use for which it is designed.
- fahrenheit scale — Gabriel Daniel [German gah-bree-el dah-nee-el] /German ˈgɑ briˌɛl ˈdɑ niˌɛl/ (Show IPA), 1686–1736, German physicist: devised a temperature scale and introduced the use of mercury in thermometers.
- fair-trade price — the price set for a commodity by the Fairtrade Foundation
- father christmas — Santa Claus.
- father confessor — confessor (def 2).
- feather merchant — a person who avoids responsibility and effort; loafer.
- feature creature — [Possibly from slang "creature feature" for a horror movie] 1. One who loves to add features to designs or programs, perhaps at the expense of coherence, concision or taste. 2. Alternately, a mythical being that induces otherwise rational programmers to perpetrate such crocks. See also feeping creaturism, creeping featurism.
- federal district — a district in which the national government of a country is located, especially one in Latin America.
- federated church — a church whose membership includes two or more congregations of different denominational affiliation.
- feedback control — (electronics) A control system which monitors its effect on the system it is controlling and modifies its output accordingly. For example, a thermostat has two inputs: the desired temperature and the current temperature (the latter is the feedback). The output of the thermostat changes so as to try to equalise the two inputs. Computer disk drives use feedback control to position the read/write heads accurately on a recording track. Complex systems such as the human body contain many feedback systems that interact with each other; the homeostasis mechanisms that control body temperature and acidity are good examples.
- feel constrained — If you feel constrained to do something, you feel that you must do it, even though you would prefer not to.
- feel-good factor — When journalists refer to the feel-good factor, they mean that people are feeling hopeful and optimistic about the future.
- feeping creature — [feeping creaturism] An unnecessary feature; a bit of chrome that, in the speaker's judgment, is the camel's nose for a whole horde of new features.
- fertility factor — a sex-determining chromosome or gene.
- feulgen reaction — a reaction in which an aldehyde combines with a modified Schiff's reagent to produce a purplish compound: used especially to test for the presence of DNA
- filter cigarette — a cigarette with a filter tip
- finance director — financial manager
- finance minister — a member of a government in charge of the financial affairs of a state etc
- fingertip search — When the police carry out a fingertip search of a place, they examine it for evidence in a very detailed way.
- flame cultivator — an implement that kills weeds by scorching them with a directed flow of flaming gas.
- flat-bed scanner — a type of optical scanner having a flat, stationary surface on which a page is scanned by a moving head.
- floridean starch — the storage polysaccharide of red algae.
- fluorescent lamp — a tubular electric discharge lamp in which light is produced by the fluorescence of phosphors coating the inside of the tube.
- focused strategy — a business strategy in which an organization divests itself of all but its core activities, using the funds raised to enhance the distinctive abilities that give it an advantage over its rivals
- food intolerance — an intolerance of a specific type of food, causing an adverse reaction
- forced vibration — Forced vibration is a type of vibration in which a force is repeatedly applied to a mechanical system.
- formation packer — A formation packer is a substance that is used as a seal between the casing and the borehole so that part of the hole can be tested.
- francis townsend — Francis Everett, 1867–1960, U.S. physician and proposer of the Townsend plan.
- frederic mistral — Frédéric [frey-dey-reek] /freɪ deɪˈrik/ (Show IPA), 1830–1914, French Provençal poet: Nobel prize 1904.
- free association — the uncensored expression of the ideas, impressions, etc., passing through the mind of the analysand, a technique used to facilitate access to the unconscious.
- friction gearing — wheels or disks transmitting power by means of frictional contact.