13-letter words containing f, a, i, n
- finagle's law — (humour) The generalised or "folk" version of Murphy's Law, fully named "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong, will". One variant favoured among hackers is "The perversity of the Universe tends toward a maximum". The label "Finagle's Law" was popularised by SF author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this "Belter" culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy.
- final curtain — end of a theatre performance
- final edition — the last version of a particular issue of a daily newspaper
- final whistle — sport: whistle indicating end of match
- financing gap — the difference between a country's requirements for foreign exchange to finance its debts and imports and its income from overseas
- finback whale — rorqual
- fine adjuster — (jargon, tool, humour) A tool used for percussive maintenance, also known as a "hammer".
- fingal's cave — a cave on the island of Staffa, in the Hebrides, Scotland. 227 feet (69 meters) long; 42 feet (13 meters) wide.
- fingerbreadth — the breadth of a finger: approximately 3/4 inch (2 cm).
- fingerpainted — Simple past tense and past participle of fingerpaint.
- finisher card — (in manufacturing fibers) the last card in the carding process, for converting stock into roving.
- finite clause — a clause with a finite verb in its predicate.
- finnan haddie — smoked haddock.
- fire watching — the job of watching for fires, especially those caused by aerial bombardment
- firing hammer — the part of the firing mechanism of a firearm that ignites the charge by striking the primer
- firnification — the process by which snow changes into névé.
- first baseman — the player whose position is first base.
- first reading — the reading of a bill when it is first introduced in a legislative body.
- fish geranium — zonal geranium.
- fishing banks — a place where fish are abundant, as off Newfoundland
- fishing smack — any of various fore-and-aft-rigged fishing vessels of rather large size, often containing a well to keep the catch alive.
- five-and-dime — a shop that sells a wide variety of things at a cheap price
- flabergasting — Present participle of flabergast.
- flagellomania — enthusiasm for whipping or being whipped
- flame cutting — a method of cutting ferrous metals in which the metal is heated by a torch to about 800°C and is oxidized by a stream of oxygen from the torch
- flameproofing — Present participle of flameproof.
- flaming sword — a cultivated bromeliad, Vriesea splendens, native to French Guiana, having long, red bracts and yellow flowers.
- flaminian way — an ancient Roman road extending N from Rome to what is now Rimini. 215 miles (345 km) long.
- flash fiction — very short works of fiction that are typically no longer than a couple of pages and may be as short as one paragraph.
- flat knitting — a knitting process in which the yarn is knitted horizontally on needles set in a straight line.
- flavoproteins — Plural form of flavoprotein.
- flavopurpurin — a yellow, crystalline anthraquinone dye, C 14 H 8 O 5 , isomeric with purpurin.
- fleming valve — (formerly) a diode.
- flemish giant — one of a breed of large domestic rabbits of Belgian origin, having a solid gray, white, or black coat, and raised for its meat and fur.
- floating debt — short-term government borrowing, esp by the issue of three-month Treasury bills
- floating dock — a submersible, floating structure used as a dry dock, having a floor that is submerged, slipped under a floating vessel, and then raised so as to raise the vessel entirely out of the water.
- floating gang — a group of railroad workers who service or repair the track but are not assigned to a particular section.
- floating rate — fluctuating exchange rate
- floating ribs — the eleventh and twelfth pairs of ribs, not attached to the breastbone or to other ribs but only to the vertebrae
- floating roof — A floating roof is an internal roof of a fuel storage tank.
- floating vote — those voters collectively who are not permanently attached to any political party.
- floccillation — a delirious picking of the bedclothes by the patient, as in certain fevers.
- floor trading — trading by personal contact on the floor of a market or exchange
- flooring brad — a brad having a very small head, made in lengths from 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 cm).
- florianopolis — a state in S Brazil. 36,856 sq. mi. (95,455 sq. km). Capital: Florianópolis.
- flowering ash — a variety of ash tree that produces conspicuous flowers
- fluctuational — Of, pertaining to, or resulting from fluctuation(s).
- flunitrazepam — a powerful benzodiazepine sedative, C 16 H 12 FN 3 O 3 , that causes semiconsciousness and memory blackouts: has been implicated in date rapes and is illegal in the U.S.
- fly fisherman — one who fishes by fly-casting
- flying boxcar — a large airplane designed to carry cargo.