0%

18-letter words containing e, r, c, t, i

  • feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
  • fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
  • fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
  • fifth monarchy men — (during the Commonwealth in the 17th century) a militant sect of Puritans who identified the fifth monarchy with the millennial reign of Christ and who believed they should help to inaugurate that reign by force.
  • file control block — (operating system)   (FCB) An MS-DOS data structure that stores information about an open file. The number of FCBs is configured in CONFIG.SYS with a command FCBS=x,y where x (between 1 and 255 inclusive, default 4) specifies the number of file control blocks to allocate and therefore the number of files that MS-DOS can have open at one time. y (not needed from DOS 5.0 onward) specifies the number of files to be closed automatically if all x are in use.
  • 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.
  • fitness instructor — physical trainer, exercise teacher
  • fixed-term tenancy — a tenancy arrangement for a particular and fixed period
  • forced perspective — the use of objects or images that are larger or smaller than they should be, to suggest that they are nearer or further away than they really are
  • forensic chemistry — the application of facts concerning chemistry to questions of civil and criminal law.
  • forensic scientist — science expert: provides evidence
  • forward compatible — forward compatibility
  • french west africa — a former French federation in W Africa, including Dahomey (now Benin), French Guinea, French Sudan (now Mali), Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Upper Volta (now Burkina Fasso).
  • french west indies — islands in the West Indies that belong to France, including two overseas departments (Martinique & Guadeloupe) & several former dependencies of Guadeloupe
  • frequency function — probability density function (def 2).
  • ftp software, inc. — (company)   Developers of the original PC/TCP Packet Driver specification. Address: 26 Princess St. Wakefield, MA 01880-3004. Telephone: +1 (617) 246 0900.
  • 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.
  • gas-discharge tube — any tube in which an electric discharge takes place through a gas
  • generic identifier — (language, text)   A string constituting the name of a element in an SGML document.
  • genetic algorithms — genetic algorithm
  • gensym corporation — (company)   A company that supplies software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimisation, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modelling and simulation. Their products include G2.
  • geodetic surveying — the surveying of the earth's surface, making allowance for its curvature and giving an accurate framework for smaller-scale surveys
  • geometrical optics — the branch of optics dealing with light as rays, especially in the study of the effects of lenses and mirrors on light beams and of their combination in optical instruments.
  • german east africa — a former German territory in E Africa, the area now comprised of continental Tanzania and the independent republics of Rwanda and Burundi.
  • give sb the creeps — If someone or something gives you the creeps, they make you feel very nervous or frightened.
  • glyceryl trioleate — olein.
  • government deficit — A government deficit is a situation in which a government spends more money than it has.
  • graduated cylinder — a narrow, cylindrical container marked with horizontal lines to represent units of measurement and used to precisely measure the volume of liquids.
  • grammatical gender — gender based on arbitrary assignment, without regard to the referent of a noun, as in French le livre (masculine), “the book,” and German das Mädchen (neuter), “the girl.”.
  • gravity escapement — an escapement, used especially in large outdoor clocks, in which the impulse is given to the pendulum by means of a weight falling through a certain distance.
  • great expectations — a novel (1861) by Charles Dickens.
  • great-circle track — the route of a ship following the arc of a great circle, appearing as a curved line on a Mercator chart and as a straight line on a gnomonic chart.
  • greater pichiciego — an armadillo, Burmeisteria retusa, similar to, but larger than, a pichiciego
  • gyromagnetic ratio — the ratio of the magnetic moment of a rotating charged particle to its angular momentum.
  • handkerchief table — corner table.
  • heart-lung machine — a device through which blood is shunted temporarily for oxygenation during surgery, while the heart or a lung is being repaired.
  • helicopter gunship — military attack helicopter
  • helicopter station — a place where helicopters are kept in readiness for use
  • hemicorporectomies — Plural form of hemicorporectomy.
  • hemorrhoidectomies — Plural form of hemorrhoidectomy.
  • herringbone stitch — a type of cross-stitch in embroidery similar to the catch stitch in sewing, consisting of an overlapped V -shaped stitch that when worked in a continuous pattern produces a twill-weave effect.
  • heteroscedasticity — (statistics) The property of a series of random variables of 'not' every variable having the same finite variance.
  • heteroskedasticity — Alternative spelling of heteroscedasticity.
  • heuristics testing — failure-directed testing
  • higher mathematics — the advanced portions of mathematics, customarily considered as embracing all beyond ordinary arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and trigonometry.
  • hippocratic facies — the sallow facial expression, with listless staring eyes, often regarded as denoting approaching death
  • historical geology — the branch of geology dealing with the history of the earth.
  • historical present — the present tense used in narrating a past event as if happening at the time of narration.
  • hot-water cylinder — a vertical cylindrical tank for storing hot water, esp an insulated one made of copper used in a domestic hot-water system
  • hotel receptionist — a person who looks after guests when they first arrive at a hotel, checking them in, giving them their keys, etc
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?