16-letter words containing e, n, f, r
- disfranchisement — to deprive (a person) of a right of citizenship, as of the right to vote.
- diversifications — Plural form of diversification.
- do oneself proud — to do extremely well
- documentary film — factual, informative film
- dolce far niente — pleasing inactivity.
- dorothy canfield — Dorothy, Fisher, Dorothy Canfield.
- drag coefficient — a measure of the drag of an object in a moving fluid, esp air
- edsel ford range — a mountain range in Antarctica, E of the Ross Sea.
- eigenfrequencies — Plural form of eigenfrequency.
- electric furnace — any furnace in which the heat is provided by an electric current
- electronic flash — Photography
- energy-efficient — A device or building that is energy-efficient uses relatively little energy to provide the power it needs.
- engineer officer — a ship's officer who is qualified to be in charge of the vessel's propulsion and other machinery
- erlenmeyer flask — conical container used in laboratory
- external affairs — (formerly) the Canadian federal Foreign Affairs department
- extreme fighting — a combat sport incorporating techniques from a range of martial arts, with little if any regulation of the types of blows permissible
- extrinsic factor — vitamin B12
- face recognition — the ability of a computer to scan, store, and recognize human faces for use in identifying people
- facial neuralgia — paroxysmal darting pain and muscular twitching in the face, evoked by rubbing certain points of the face.
- fahrenheit scale — Gabriel Daniel [German gah-bree-el dah-nee-el] /German ˈgɑ briˌɛl ˈdɑ niˌɛl/ (Show IPA), 1686–1736, German physicist: devised a temperature scale and introduced the use of mercury in thermometers.
- faintheartedness — The quality or state of being fainthearted.
- false dragonhead — a North American plant, Physostegia virginiana, of the mint family, having a spike of tubular, two-lipped, pink or white flowers.
- fancy dress ball — a ball at which the guests wear fancy dress
- fandango on core — (jargon, programming) (Unix/C, from the Mexican dance) In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing a core dump, or corrupts the malloc arena in such a way as to cause mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to have "done a fandango on core". On low-end personal machines without an MMU, this can corrupt the operating system itself, causing massive lossage. Other frenetic dances such as the rhumba, cha-cha, or watusi, may be substituted. See aliasing bug, precedence lossage, smash the stack, memory leak, memory smash, overrun screw, core.
- fashion designer — creator of clothing designs
- father confessor — confessor (def 2).
- feather geranium — a Eurasian weed, Chenopodium botrys, of the amaranth family, having clusters of inconspicuous flowers and unpleasant smelling, lobed leaves.
- feather merchant — a person who avoids responsibility and effort; loafer.
- federation wheat — an early-maturing drought-resistant variety of wheat developed by William Farrar in 1902
- feedback control — (electronics) A control system which monitors its effect on the system it is controlling and modifies its output accordingly. For example, a thermostat has two inputs: the desired temperature and the current temperature (the latter is the feedback). The output of the thermostat changes so as to try to equalise the two inputs. Computer disk drives use feedback control to position the read/write heads accurately on a recording track. Complex systems such as the human body contain many feedback systems that interact with each other; the homeostasis mechanisms that control body temperature and acidity are good examples.
- feel constrained — If you feel constrained to do something, you feel that you must do it, even though you would prefer not to.
- feeping creature — [feeping creaturism] An unnecessary feature; a bit of chrome that, in the speaker's judgment, is the camel's nose for a whole horde of new features.
- feira de santana — a city in BahÍa state, E Brazil.
- feline distemper — distemper1 (def 1c).
- fellow passenger — a person travelling on the same vehicle, plane, ship etc as you
- feminine caesura — a caesura occurring immediately after an unstressed or short syllable.
- fend for oneself — to manage by oneself; get along without help
- ferdinand marcos — Ferdinand E(dralin) [ed-ruh-lin] /ˈɛd rə lɪn/ (Show IPA), 1917–1989, Philippine political leader: president 1965–86.
- ferricyanic acid — a brown, crystalline, unstable, water-soluble solid, H 3 Fe(CN) 6 , obtained by the interaction of a ferricyanide and an acid.
- ferrocyanic acid — a white, crystalline, unstable, water-soluble solid, H 4 Fe(CN) 6 , obtained by the interaction of a ferrocyanide and an acid.
- ferruginous duck — a common European duck, Aythyra nyroca, having reddish-brown plumage with white wing bars
- fertile crescent — an agricultural region extending from the Levant to Iraq.
- fertility clinic — a place at which a couple who are unable to conceive may receive medical advice and treatments to help them to have a child
- feulgen reaction — a reaction in which an aldehyde combines with a modified Schiff's reagent to produce a purplish compound: used especially to test for the presence of DNA
- fibonacci number — a number in the Fibonacci sequence, each of which is the sum of the previous two
- fibonacci series — a sequence of integers in which each integer (Fibonacci number) after the second is the sum of the two preceding integers; specif., the series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . .
- fielding average — a measure of the fielding ability of a player, obtained by dividing the number of put-outs and assists by the number of put-outs, assists, and errors and carrying out the result to three decimal places. A player with ten errors in 600 chances has a fielding average of .984.
- fifth-generation — denoting developments in computer design to produce machines with artificial intelligence
- figure-conscious — concerned to keep an attractively slim body shape
- file compression — (algorithm) The compression of data in a file, usually to reduce storage requirements.