15-letter words containing c, o, n, f, r
- false buckthorn — a spiny shrub or small tree, Bumelia lanuginosa, of the sapodilla family, native to the southern U.S., having gummy, milky sap and white, bell-shaped flowers and yielding a hard, light-brown wood.
- fantasmagorical — Alternative form of phantasmagorical.
- fault tolerance — (architecture) 1. The ability of a system or component to continue normal operation despite the presence of hardware or software faults. This often involves some degree of redundancy. 2. The number of faults a system or component can withstand before normal operation is impaired.
- fencepost error — 1. (Rarely "lamp-post error") A problem with the discrete equivalent of a boundary condition, often exhibited in programs by iterative loops. From the following problem: "If you build a fence 100 feet long with posts 10 feet apart, how many posts do you need?" (Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10). For example, suppose you have a long list or array of items, and want to process items m through n; how many items are there? The obvious answer is n - m, but that is off by one; the right answer is n - m + 1. The "obvious" formula exhibits a fencepost error. See also zeroth and note that not all off-by-one errors are fencepost errors. The game of Musical Chairs involves a catastrophic off-by-one error where N people try to sit in N - 1 chairs, but it's not a fencepost error. Fencepost errors come from counting things rather than the spaces between them, or vice versa, or by neglecting to consider whether one should count one or both ends of a row. 2. (Rare) An error induced by unexpected regularities in input values, which can (for instance) completely thwart a theoretically efficient binary tree or hash coding implementation. The error here involves the difference between expected and worst case behaviours of an algorithm.
- fighter command — a former unit of the Royal Air Force dedicated to the use of fighter aircraft, esp against enemy bombers and their escorts during WWII
- fission product — a nuclide produced either directly by nuclear fission or by the radioactive decay of such a nuclide
- fission reactor — a nuclear reactor in which a fission reaction takes place
- flavor enhancer — a substance added to food in order to enhance or intensify its flavor: Salt is a common flavor enhancer.
- flavourdynamics — as in quantum flavour dynamics, a mathematical model used to describe the interaction of flavoured particles (weak force) through the exchange of intermediate vector bosons
- floating charge — an unsecured charge on the assets of an enterprise that allows such assets to be used commercially until the enterprise ceases to operate or the creditor intervenes to demand collateral
- floating screed — Building Trades. screed (def 3).
- flood insurance — insurance covering loss or damage to property arising from a flood, flood tide, or the like.
- florence fennel — a variety of fennel, Foeniculum vulgare azoricum, having enlarged leaf bases, which are blanched and used especially as an ingredient in salads.
- florida current — the part of the Gulf Stream which extends from the Florida Strait to Cape Hatteras.
- flow of control — control flow
- flowers of zinc — a white or yellowish-white, amorphous, odorless, water-insoluble powder, ZnO, used chiefly as a paint pigment, in cosmetics, dental cements, matches, white printing inks, and opaque glass, and in medicine in the treatment of skin conditions.
- focusing screen — a camera in which the image appears on a ground-glass viewer (focusing screen) after being reflected by a mirror or after passing through a prism or semitransparent glass; in one type (single-lens reflex camera) light passes through the same lens to both the ground glass and the film, while in another type (twin-lens reflex camera) light passes through one lens (viewing lens) to the ground glass and through a second lens (taking lens) to the film, the lenses being mechanically coupled for focusing.
- food insecurity — an economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.
- food processing — transforming raw materials into food
- for a certainty — without doubt
- foreign service — a division of the U.S. Department of State or of a foreign office that maintains diplomatic and consular posts and personnel in other countries.
- forensic expert — an expert in applying scientific, technical or medical knowledge to the purposes of law
- formation dance — any dance in which a number of couples form a certain arrangement, such as two facing lines or a circle, and perform a series of figures within or based on that arrangement
- forthcomingness — coming, forth, or about to come forth; about to appear; approaching in time: the forthcoming concert.
- forward echelon — (in a military operation) the troops and officers in a combat zone or in a position to engage the enemy.
- fovea centralis — a small pit or depression at the back of the retina forming the point of sharpest vision.
- fractional note — a banknote in a denomination smaller than the standard unit of currency
- fractionalizing — Present participle of fractionalize.
- franco-american — an American of French or French-Canadian descent.
- frederic chopin — Frédéric François [fred-uh-rik fran-swah,, fred-rik;; French frey-dey-reek frahn-swa] /ˈfrɛd ə rɪk frænˈswɑ,, ˈfrɛd rɪk;; French freɪ deɪˈrik frɑ̃ˈswa/ (Show IPA), 1810–49, Polish composer and pianist, in France after 1831.
- frederick north — Christopher, pen name of John Wilson.
- french marigold — a composite plant, Tagetes patula, of Mexico, having yellow flowers with red markings.
- french overture — a short piece in three movements common in the 17th and 18th centuries
- french togoland — a former United Nations Trust Territory in W Africa, administered by France (1946–60), now the independent republic of Togo
- french vermouth — a dry aromatic white wine
- friction clutch — a clutch in which one part turns another by friction between them.
- friend at court — a friend in a position of influence or power who may advance one's interests, especially a helpful person who is close to someone in authority.
- frontal cyclone — any extratropical cyclone associated with a front: the most common cyclonic storm.
- fructifications — Plural form of fructification.
- gale-force wind — a wind of force seven to ten on the Beaufort scale or from 45 to 90 kilometres per hour
- general officer — an officer ranking above colonel.
- goal difference — the number of goals scored by a team minus the number of goals it has conceded
- grace-and-favor — noting a residence owned by a noble or sovereign and bestowed by him or her upon some person for that person's lifetime.
- granitification — the process or action of forming into granite
- grecian profile — a profile distinguished by the absence of the hollow between the upper ridge of the nose and the forehead, thereby forming a straight line.
- gulf of corinth — an inlet of the Ionian Sea between the Peloponnese and central Greece
- gunnery officer — an officer in charge of heavy guns
- hacking x for y — [ITS] Ritual phrasing of part of the information which ITS made publicly available about each user. This information (the INQUIR record) was a sort of form in which the user could fill out various fields. On display, two of these fields were always combined into a project description of the form "Hacking X for Y" (e.g. ""Hacking perceptrons for Minsky""). This form of description became traditional and has since been carried over to other systems with more general facilities for self-advertisement (such as Unix plan files).
- holding furnace — a small furnace for holding molten metal produced in a larger melting furnace at a desired temperature for casting.
- hydrofracturing — a process in which fractures in rocks below the earth's surface are opened and widened by injecting chemicals and liquids at high pressure: used especially to extract natural gas or oil.