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17-letter words containing d, a, t, e, l

  • eat flaming death — (humour, abuse)   A construction popularised among hackers by the infamous CPU Wars comic; supposedly derive from a famously turgid line in a WWII-era anti-Nazi propaganda comic that ran "Eat flaming death, non-Aryan mongrels!" or something of the sort (however, it is also reported that the Firesign Theater's 1975 album "In The Next World, You're On Your Own" included the phrase "Eat flaming death, fascist media pigs"; this may have been an influence). Used in humorously overblown expressions of hostility. "Eat flaming death, EBCDIC users!"
  • edward fitzgerald — Edward, 1809–83, English poet: translator of drama and poetry, especially of Omar Khayyám.
  • electric retarder — An electric retarder is an electromagnetic transmission brake that is only effective when a vehicle is moving.
  • electricity board — a company which supplies electricity
  • electrocardiogram — A record or display of a person’s heartbeat produced by electrocardiography.
  • enlarged prostate — disorder of male reproductive gland
  • equalization fund — a monetary reserve established by a country to provide funds for maintaining the official exchange rates of its currency by equalizing the buying and selling of foreign exchange.
  • esprit d'escalier — clever repartee one thinks of too late
  • ethinyloestradiol — Alternative form of ethinylestradiol.
  • exception handler — Special code which is called when an exception occurs during the execution of a program. If the programmer does not provide a handler for a given exception, a built-in system exception handler will usually be called resulting in abortion of the program run and some kind of error indication being returned to the user. Examples of exception handler mechanisms are Unix's signal calls and Lisp's catch and throw.
  • exceptional child — a gifted child
  • false bread-fruit — ceriman.
  • fear and loathing — (Hunter S. Thompson) A state inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards that are totally brain-damaged but ubiquitous - Intel 8086s, COBOL, EBCDIC, or any IBM machine except the Rios (also known as the RS/6000).
  • feasibility study — (systems analysis)   Part of the systems develpment life cycle which aims to determine whether it is sensible to develop some system. The most popular model of feasibility study is "TELOS", standing for Technical, Economic, Legal, Operational, Schedule. Technical Feasibility: does the technology exist to implement the proposed system? Is it a practical proposition? Economic Feasibility: is the system cost-effective? Do benefits outweigh costs? Legal Feasibility: is there any conflict between the proposed system and legal requirements, e.g. the Data Protection Act? Operational Feasibility: are the current work practices and procedures adequate to support the new system? Schedule Feasibility: can the system be developed in time? After the feasibility study, the requirements analysis should be carried out.
  • feint-ruled paper — writing paper with light horizontal lines printed across at regular intervals
  • fendalton tractor — a four-wheel drive recreational vehicle
  • first-aid classes — classes which teach people how to give immediate medical help in an emergency
  • flagrante delicto — Law. in the very act of committing the offense.
  • follow the leader — a child's game in which players, one behind the other, follow a leader and must repeat or follow everything he or she does.
  • for all the world — the earth or globe, considered as a planet.
  • fore-and-aft sail — any of various sails, as jib-headed sails, gaff sails, lugsails, lateen sails, spritsails, staysails, and jibs, that do not set on yards and whose normal position, when not trimmed, is in a fore-and-aft direction amidships.
  • fort leonard wood — a military reservation and U.S. Army training center in SW Missouri, SW of Rolla.
  • foucault pendulum — a pendulum that demonstrates the rotation of the earth by exhibiting an apparent change in its plane of oscillation.
  • fractal dimension — (mathematics)   A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by "measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object. Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object. For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by repeatedly replacing ___ with _/\_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/\_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
  • full load current — A full load current is the largest current that a motor or other device is designed to carry under particular conditions.
  • galactic latitude — the angular distance from the galactic equator of a point on the celestial sphere.
  • garden heliotrope — the common valerian, Valeriana officinalis, especially when cultivated as an ornamental.
  • generalized other — an individual's internalized impression of societal norms and expectations.
  • goldbeater's skin — the prepared outside membrane of the large intestine of the ox, used by goldbeaters to lay between the leaves of the metal while they beat it into gold leaf.
  • good-time charlie — an affable, sociable, pleasure-loving man.
  • grand climacteric — Physiology. a period of decrease of reproductive capacity in men and women, culminating, in women, in the menopause.
  • grandfather clock — a pendulum floor clock having a case as tall as or taller than a person; tall-case clock; long-case clock.
  • grandmother clock — a pendulum clock similar to a grandfather's clock but shorter.
  • great namaqualand — an arid coastal region in the S part of Namibia, extending into the Cape of Good Hope province of the Republic of South Africa, divided by the Orange River into two regions, one in Namibia (Great Namaqualand) the other in South Africa (Little Namaqualand) inhabited by the Nama.
  • greater celandine — celandine (def 1).
  • green-winged teal — a small freshwater duck, Anas crecca, of Eurasia and North America, having an iridescent green speculum in the wing.
  • greenland current — the ocean current flowing clockwise around S Greenland.
  • greenland halibut — a flatfish, Reinhardtius hippoglossoides, similar and related to the halibut
  • grey-faced petrel — a dark-coloured New Zealand petrel, Pterodroma macroptera gouldi
  • ground angle shot — a photograph or film shot in which the lens is near the ground, usually pointing up somewhat
  • guardian ad litem — a person appointed by a court as guardian of an infant or other person to act on his or her behalf in a particular action or proceeding.
  • hairy-tailed mole — a blackish North American mole, Parascalops breweri, having a short, hairy tail.
  • haitian solenodon — a rare shrewlike nocturnal mammal of the Caribbean, Solenodon paradoxus, having a long hairless tail and an elongated snout: family Solenodontidae, order Insectivora (insectivores)
  • half-breadth plan — a diagrammatic plan of one half of the hull of a vessel divided lengthwise amidships, showing water lines, stations, diagonals, and bow and buttock lines.
  • hardware platform — a group of compatible computers that can run the same software.
  • henry cabot lodge — Henry Cabot, 1850–1924, U.S. public servant and author: senator 1893–1924.
  • heterochlamydeous — (of a plant) having a perianth consisting of distinct sepals and petals
  • hillel foundation — a national organization, founded in 1924 by the B'nai B'rith, that institutes and administers programs designed to enrich the religious, cultural, and social life of Jewish college students.
  • historical method — the process of establishing general facts and principles through attention to chronology and to the evolution or historical course of what is being studied.
  • hit the headlines — be prominently featured in the news
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