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18-letter words containing c, o, e, f, i

  • configuration item — (jargon)   Hardware or software, or an aggregate of both, which is designated by the project configuration manager (or contracting agency) for configuration management.
  • congress of vienna — the European conference held at Vienna from 1814–15 to settle the territorial problems left by the Napoleonic Wars
  • considered harmful — (programming, humour)   A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
  • constructive proof — (mathematics)   A proof that something exists that provides an example or a method for actually constructing it. For example, for any pair of finite real numbers n < 0 and p > 0, there exists a real number 0 < k < 1 such that f(k) = (1-k)*n + k*p = 0. A constructive proof would proceed by rearranging the above to derive an equation for k: k = 1/(1-n/p) From this and the constraints on n and p, we can show that 0 < k < 1. A few mathematicians actually reject *all* non-constructive arguments as invalid; this means, for instance, that the law of the excluded middle (either P or not-P must hold, whatever P is) has to go; this makes proof by contradiction invalid. See intuitionistic logic. Constructive proofs are popular in theoretical computer science, both because computer scientists are less given to abstraction than mathematicians and because intuitionistic logic turns out to be an appropriate theoretical treatment of the foundations of computer science.
  • continued fraction — a number plus a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction, and so on
  • contract furniture — furniture designed and manufactured for commercial installation, as in offices, waiting rooms, or lobbies.
  • cooking facilities — equipment necessary for cooking
  • cooling-off period — A cooling-off period is an agreed period of time during which two sides with opposing views try to resolve a dispute before taking any serious action.
  • corps of engineers — a branch of the U.S. Army responsible for military and many civil engineering projects.
  • corridors of power — the higher echelons of government, the Civil Service, etc, considered as the location of power and influence
  • counterreformation — a reform movement to oppose a previous one
  • creme de framboise — a liqueur flavored with raspberries.
  • crocodile-infested — full of crocodiles
  • crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
  • curvature of field — a monochromatic aberration of a lens or other optical system in which the focal surface is curved, the refracted image of an object oriented perpendicular to the axis of the lens lying on a curved surface rather than in a plane perpendicular to the axis.
  • cycle of indiction — indiction (def 3).
  • cycle-of-indiction — a proclamation made every 15 years in the later Roman Empire, fixing the valuation of property to be used as a basis for taxation.
  • de-objectification — to present as an object, especially of sight, touch, or other physical sense; make objective; externalize.
  • dead-letter office — an office where undeliverable letters were taken for storage
  • declaration of war — a formal statement made by one country to another that a state of war now exists between them
  • deficiency account — an account summarizing the financial condition of an individual or company in danger of bankruptcy.
  • democratic deficit — any situation in which there is believed to be a lack of democratic accountability and control over the decision-making process
  • diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
  • disidentifications — Plural form of disidentification.
  • do oneself justice — If you do yourself justice, you do something as well as you are capable of doing it.
  • dysfunctionalities — Plural form of dysfunctionality.
  • economies of scale — Economies of scale are the financial advantages that a company gains when it produces large quantities of products.
  • efficient frontier — The efficient frontier is a method of analyzing a portfolio to discover the combination of assets that will produce the most return for risk.
  • eleanor of castile — 1246–90, Spanish wife of Edward I of England. Eleanor Crosses were erected at each place at which her body rested between Nottingham, where she died, and London, where she is buried
  • electronic warfare — the military use of electronics to prevent or reduce an enemy's effective use and to protect friendly use of electromagnetic radiation equipment
  • enforcement action — action by a body or organization, esp a financial one, to make sure that its rules are being followed
  • essence of violets — an alcoholic solution derived from violets, used as perfume
  • excess profits tax — a tax on profits exceeding a certain amount
  • fabric conditioner — a product used when washing clothes to make them feel softer
  • fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
  • fibonacci sequence — (mathematics)   The infinite sequence of numbers beginning 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ... in which each term is the sum of the two terms preceding it. The ratio of successive Fibonacci terms tends to the golden ratio, namely (1 + sqrt 5)/2.
  • fifth monarchy men — (during the Commonwealth in the 17th century) a militant sect of Puritans who identified the fifth monarchy with the millennial reign of Christ and who believed they should help to inaugurate that reign by force.
  • file control block — (operating system)   (FCB) An MS-DOS data structure that stores information about an open file. The number of FCBs is configured in CONFIG.SYS with a command FCBS=x,y where x (between 1 and 255 inclusive, default 4) specifies the number of file control blocks to allocate and therefore the number of files that MS-DOS can have open at one time. y (not needed from DOS 5.0 onward) specifies the number of files to be closed automatically if all x are in use.
  • firecracker flower — a plant, Dichelostemma ida-maia, of the amaryllis family, native to California and Oregon, having clusters of tubular scarlet flowers.
  • first class module — (programming)   A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status.
  • fischer von erlach — Johann Bernhard [yaw-hahn bern-hahrt] /ˈyɔ hɑn ˈbɛrn hɑrt/ (Show IPA), 1656–1723, Austrian architect.
  • fitness instructor — physical trainer, exercise teacher
  • fixed-focus camera — a camera with an unadjustable focal length and with a relatively large depth of field.
  • fixed-radio access — Wireless Local Loop
  • fly in the face of — to move through the air using wings.
  • forced perspective — the use of objects or images that are larger or smaller than they should be, to suggest that they are nearer or further away than they really are
  • forensic chemistry — the application of facts concerning chemistry to questions of civil and criminal law.
  • forensic scientist — science expert: provides evidence
  • formal equivalence — the relation that holds between two open sentences when their universal closures are materially equivalent
  • forward compatible — forward compatibility
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