15-letter words containing c, o, n, t, r
- eta abstraction — eta conversion
- ethnic minority — an immigrant or racial group regarded by those claiming to speak for the cultural majority as distinct and unassimilated
- ethnocentricism — Ethnocentrism.
- ethnocentricity — Practising or the policies surrounding being ethnocentric.
- excommunicatory — Relating to excommunication.
- excrementitious — Of or pertaining to the nature of excrement.
- excursion train — a train that is laid on for a special occasion such as a sports or cultural event
- existence proof — non-constructive proof
- expressionistic — Expressionist.
- extradictionary — (obsolete) Consisting not of words but of realities.
- extreme unction — Catholicism: last rites
- fabric softener — a substance added to fabrics during laundering to make them puffier and softer.
- factor analysis — the use of one of several methods for reducing a set of variables to a lesser number of new variables, each of which is a function of one or more of the original variables.
- factory chimney — a tall chimney of a factory
- factory farming — Factory farming is a system of farming which involves keeping animals indoors, often with very little space, and giving them special foods so that they grow more quickly or produce more eggs or milk.
- 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
- 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).
- florida current — the part of the Gulf Stream which extends from the Florida Strait to Cape Hatteras.
- flow of control — control flow
- food insecurity — an economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.
- for a certainty — without doubt
- 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.
- 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.
- frederick north — Christopher, pen name of John Wilson.
- 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.
- gastric balloon — an inflatable rubber bag placed in the stomach to reduce its capacity as an aid to losing weight
- gastronomically — the art or science of good eating.
- gender politics — debate about the roles and relations of men and women
- geneva protocol — the agreement in 1925 to ban the use of asphyxiating, poisonous, or other gases in war. It does not ban the development or manufacture of such gases
- geochronologist — A geologist whose speciality is geochronology.
- get one's cards — to be told to leave one's employment
- gnome computers — (company) A small UK hardware and software company. They make transputer boards for the Acorn Archimedes among other things. E-mail: Chris Stenton <[email protected]>.
- granitification — the process or action of forming into granite