18-letter words containing e, l, o
- filename extension — (filename extension) The portion of a filename, following the final point, which indicates the kind of data stored in the file - the file type. Many operating systems use filename extensions, e.g. Unix, VMS, MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows. They are usually from one to three letters (some sad old OSes support no more than three). Examples include "c" for C source code, "ps" for PostScript, "txt" for arbitrary text. Apart from informing the user what type of content the file holds, filename extensions are typically used to decide which program to launch when a file is "run", e.g. by double-clicking it in a GUI file browser. They are also used by Unix's make to determine how to build one kind of file from another. Compare: MIME type.
- fill someone in on — to provide someone with additional facts, details, etc. about
- finite-dimensional — (of a vector space) having a basis consisting of a finite number of elements.
- fire in your belly — If you say that someone has fire in their belly, you are expressing approval of them because they are energetic, enthusiastic, and have very strong feelings.
- 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.
- fissure of rolando — central sulcus.
- fissure of sylvius — lateral fissure.
- flame-of-the-woods — an Indian evergreen shrub, Ixora coccinea, of the madder family, having red, tubular flowers in dense clusters.
- flat on one's back — lying supine
- flat-bottomed rail — a rail having a cross section like an inverted T, with the top extremity enlarged slightly to form the head
- floating underflow — underflow
- floating-rate note — a eurobond, often issued as a negotiable bearer bond, that has a floating rate of interest
- flotsam and jetsam — the part of the wreckage of a ship and its cargo found floating on the water. Compare jetsam, lagan.
- flower arrangement — floral display
- flowers of sulphur — minute crystals of sulphur obtained by condensing sulphur vapour on a cold surface
- fluorescent screen — a transparent screen coated on one side with a phosphor that fluoresces when exposed to X-rays or cathode rays
- fluorodeoxyglucose — (carbohydrate) A fluorine analog of glucose that is used in positron emission tomography.
- fly in the face of — to move through the air using wings.
- fly off the handle — a part of a thing made specifically to be grasped or held by the hand.
- football supporter — a person who supports a particular football team
- for the hell of it — the place or state of punishment of the wicked after death; the abode of evil and condemned spirits; Gehenna or Tartarus.
- for the life of me — If you say that you cannot for the life of you understand or remember something, you are emphasizing that you cannot understand or remember it, even if you try hard.
- forced development — the processing of underexposed photographic film to increase the image density
- forethoughtfulness — The condition of being forethoughtful.
- forget-me-not blue — a shade of blue similar to the shade of the flowers of a forget-me-not
- formal equivalence — the relation that holds between two open sentences when their universal closures are materially equivalent
- forward compatible — forward compatibility
- four-color problem — the problem, solved in 1976, of proving the theorem that any geographic map can be colored using only four colors so that no connected countries with a common boundary are colored the same color.
- four-legged friend — a four-legged animal, esp a dog
- fragile x syndrome — a widespread form of mental retardation caused by a faulty gene on the X chromosome.
- fragile-x syndrome — an inherited condition characterized by learning disability: affected individuals have an X-chromosome that is easily damaged under certain conditions
- frederick douglass — Frederick, 1817–95, U.S. ex-slave, abolitionist, and orator.
- free-range poultry — poultry kept in natural nonintensive conditions
- free-will offering — a voluntary religious contribution made in addition to what may be expected or required.
- fringe-toed lizard — an iguanid lizard, Uma notata, of sandy deserts of the western U.S. and Mexico, having a wedge-shaped snout and toes fringed with long, pointed scales.
- fuller rose beetle — a beetle, Pantomorus godmani, that feeds on the leaves of roses as well as on those of citrus and other fruit trees.
- fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
- functional disease — a disease in which there is an abnormal change in the function of an organ, but no structural alteration in the tissues involved (opposed to organic disease).
- functional testing — (testing) (Or "black-box testing", "closed-box testing") The application of test data derived from functional requirements without regard to how the system is implemented.
- funeral procession — ceremonial cortège at a burial
- gabriele dannunzio — Gabriele [Italian gah-bree-e-le] /Italian ˌgɑ briˈɛ lɛ/ (Show IPA), (Duca Minimo) 1863–1938, Italian soldier, novelist, and poet.
- gainful employment — an occupation that pays an income
- galactic longitude — the angular distance in degrees measured eastward in the galactic plane from a radius drawn from the earth as center to the constellation Sagittarius.
- galilean telescope — a refracting telescope that forms an erect image, consisting of an objective of relatively long focal length that causes light rays to converge and an eyepiece of short focal length that causes them to diverge.
- gamblers anonymous — an organization that holds group meetings to help people who are addicted to gambling
- garbage collection — (programming) (GC) The process by which dynamically allocated storage is reclaimed during the execution of a program. The term usually refers to automatic periodic storage reclamation by the garbage collector (part of the run-time system), as opposed to explicit code to free specific blocks of memory. Automatic garbage collection is usually triggered during memory allocation when the amount free memory falls below some threshold or after a certain number of allocations. Normal execution is suspended and the garbage collector is run. There are many variations on this basic scheme. Languages like Lisp represent expressions as graphs built from cells which contain pointers and data. These languages use automatic dynamic storage allocation to build expressions. During the evaluation of an expression it is necessary to reclaim space which is used by subexpressions but which is no longer pointed to by anything. This reclaimed memory is returned to the free memory pool for subsequent reallocation. Without garbage collection the program's memory requirements would increase monotonically throughout execution, possibly exceeding system limits on virtual memory size. The three main methods are mark-sweep garbage collection, reference counting and copying garbage collection. See also the AI koan about garbage collection.
- garden loosestrife — any of various plants belonging to the genus Lysimachia, of the primrose family, having clusters of usually yellow flowers, as L. vulgaris (garden loosestrife) or L. quadrifolia (whorled loosestrife)
- gas-cooled reactor — a nuclear reactor using a gas as the coolant. In the Mark I type the coolant is carbon dioxide, the moderator is graphite, and the fuel is uranium cased in magnox