16-letter words containing f, a, c, e
- cream of coconut — coconut cream (def 1).
- cream puff paste — paste made with eggs, water or milk, butter, and flour, used in making éclairs, profiteroles, and other kinds of puffs.
- cream-of-coconut — Also called cream of coconut. a creamy white liquid skimmed from the top of coconut milk that has been made by soaking grated coconut meat in water, used in East Indian cookery, mixed drinks, etc.
- creature comfort — anything providing bodily comfort, as food, clothing, or shelter
- creature feature — a horror film featuring a monster
- crime of passion — a crime, often a murder, committed from passion, esp sexual passion
- criminal offence — an action which is punishable under the law
- croydon facelift — the tightening effect on the skin of a woman's face caused by securing the hair at the back of the head in a tight ponytail
- darwin's finches — the finches of the subfamily Geospizinae of the Galapagos Islands, showing great variation in bill structure and feeding habits: provided Darwin with evidence to support his theory of evolution
- day of reckoning — If someone talks about the day of reckoning, they mean a day or time in the future when people will be forced to deal with an unpleasant situation which they have avoided until now.
- deboursification — (jargon) Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: sneck.
- decimal fraction — a fraction whose denominator is some power of 10, usually indicated by a dot (decimal point or point) written before the numerator: as 0.4 = 4/10; 0.126 = 126/1000.
- declassification — to remove the classification from (information, a document, etc.) that restricts access in terms of secrecy, confidentiality, etc. Compare classification (def 5).
- definite article — The word 'the' is sometimes called the definite article.
- dehumidification — Dehumidification is the removal of vapor from a gas-vapor mixture.
- dictionary flame — [Usenet] An attempt to sidetrack a debate away from issues by insisting on meanings for key terms that presuppose a desired conclusion or smuggle in an implicit premise. A common tactic of people who prefer argument over definitions to disputes about reality. Compare spelling flame.
- disenfranchising — Present participle of disenfranchise.
- disfranchisement — to deprive (a person) of a right of citizenship, as of the right to vote.
- diversifications — Plural form of diversification.
- 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
- duchess of malfi — a tragedy (1614?) by John Webster.
- east coast fever — a disease of cattle, endemic in east and central Africa, caused by a parasite, Theileria parva, that is carried by ticks
- economy of scale — a fall in average costs resulting from an increase in the scale of production
- elected official — person voted into office
- electric furnace — any furnace in which the heat is provided by an electric current
- electrical fault — a fault caused by something electrical
- electronic flash — Photography
- examine-in-chief — to examine (one's own witness) in attempting to adduce a case
- exemplifications — Plural form of exemplification.
- 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.
- factor of safety — the ratio of the maximum stress that a structural part or other piece of material can withstand to the maximum stress estimated for it in the use for which it is designed.
- 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.
- fair-trade price — the price set for a commodity by the Fairtrade Foundation
- falling sickness — epilepsy.
- false beechdrops — either of two parasitic or saprophytic plants of the genus Monotropa, especially the tawny or reddish M. hypopithys (false beechdrops) of eastern North America.
- family allowance — a regular government payment to the parents of children up to a certain age
- family of curves — a collection of curves whose equations differ only by values assigned a parameter or parameters.
- 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.
- farmer's reducer — a solution of ferricyanide and hypo for reducing density and increasing contrast in a negative.
- farmhouse cheese — cheese that is made by traditional methods, on or as if on a farm
- father christmas — Santa Claus.
- father confessor — confessor (def 2).
- feather merchant — a person who avoids responsibility and effort; loafer.
- feature creature — [Possibly from slang "creature feature" for a horror movie] 1. One who loves to add features to designs or programs, perhaps at the expense of coherence, concision or taste. 2. Alternately, a mythical being that induces otherwise rational programmers to perpetrate such crocks. See also feeping creaturism, creeping featurism.