16-letter words containing f, a, l, c, u
- general factotum — a person who does all sorts of jobs; general assistant
- golden handcuffs — payments deferred over a number of years that induce a person to stay with a particular company or in a particular job
- la rochefoucauld — François [frahn-swa] /frɑ̃ˈswa/ (Show IPA), 6th Duc de, 1613–80, French moralist and composer of epigrams and maxims.
- leaf-cutting ant — any of several tropical American ants of the genus Atta that cut and chew bits of leaves and flowers into a mash that they use to cultivate a fungus garden.
- leaf-cutting bee — any of the bees of the family Megachilidae that cut circular pieces from leaves or flowers to line their nests.
- louisiana french — French as spoken in Louisiana; Cajun. Abbreviation: LaF.
- luck of the draw — the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities: With my luck I'll probably get pneumonia.
- marsh cinquefoil — a variety of cinquefoil, Potentilla palustris, that grows in marshy areas
- mexican fruitfly — a brightly colored fly, Anastrepha ludens, whose larvae are a serious pest chiefly of citrus fruits and mangoes in Mexico, Central America, and southern Texas.
- miraculous fruit — miracle fruit.
- multiple factors — polygene.
- nicholas of cusa — 1401–64, German cardinal, philosopher, and mathematician: anticipated Copernicus in asserting that the earth revolves around the sun
- no-fault divorce — a divorce granted without anyone being found guilty of marital misconduct
- nonfinite clause — a clause with a nonfinite verb or with no verb, as the hour being late in The hour being late, we left.
- nuclear transfer — the procedure used to produce the first cloned mammals, in which the nucleus of a somatic cell is transferred into an egg cell whose own nucleus has been removed. This cell is then stimulated by an electric shock to divide and form an embryo
- oak leaf cluster — a U.S. military decoration in the form of a small bronze twig bearing four oak leaves and three acorns, worn on the ribbon of another decoration for valor, wounds, or distinguished service to signify a second award of the same medal.
- partial function — A function which is not defined for all arguments of its input type. E.g. f(x) = 1/x if x /= 0. The opposite of a total function. In denotational semantics, a partial function f : D -> C may be represented as a total function ft : D' -> lift(C) where D' is a superset of D and ft x = f x if x in D ft x = bottom otherwise where lift(C) = C U bottom. Bottom (LaTeX \perp) denotes "undefined".
- perforated ulcer — an ulcer that bursts through the stomach wall and leaks food and gastric juices into the abdominal cavity
- persulfuric acid — Also called Caro's acid, permonosulfuric acid, peroxymonosulfuric acid, peroxysulfuric acid. a white, crystalline solid, H 2 SO 5 , used as an oxidizing agent for certain organic compounds.
- puddling-furnace — the act of a person or thing that puddles.
- pull a long face — to look sad, glum, disapproving, etc.
- quick as a flash — If you say that someone reacts to something quick as a flash, you mean that they react to it extremely quickly.
- safeguard clause — a clause in a contract, etc, that ensures the protection of something against problems, etc
- self-cultivation — the act or art of cultivating.
- self-exculpatory — intended to excuse oneself from blame or guilt
- self-lubricating — to apply some oily or greasy substance to (a machine, parts of a mechanism, etc.) in order to diminish friction; oil or grease (something).
- self-lubrication — the process of becoming lubricated without external factors
- self-vulcanizing — to treat (rubber) with sulfur and heat, thereby imparting strength, greater elasticity, durability, etc.
- smelting furnace — an industrial oven used to heat ore in order to extract metal
- sulfocarbanilide — thiocarbanilide.
- superficialities — being at, on, or near the surface: a superficial wound.
- surface integral — the limit, as the norm of the partition of a given surface into sections of area approaches zero, of the sum of the product of the areas times the value of a given function of three variables at some point on each section.
- trailing fuchsia — a shrub, Fuchsia procumbens, of the evening primrose family, native to New Zealand, having long-stalked leaves and drooping, orange-and-purple flowers, used in hanging baskets.
- twofold purchase — a purchase using a double standing block and a double running block so as to give a mechanical advantage of four or five, neglecting friction, depending on whether the hauling is on the standing block or the running block.
- unconfirmability — to establish the truth, accuracy, validity, or genuineness of; corroborate; verify: This report confirms my suspicions.
- unenforceability — to put or keep in force; compel obedience to: to enforce a rule; Traffic laws will be strictly enforced.
- visual interface — (tool, text) (vi) /V-I/, /vi:/, *never* /siks/ A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy for an early BSD release. vi became the de facto standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favourite outside of MIT until the rise of Emacs after about 1984. It tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default setup provides no indication of which mode the editor is in (one correspondent accordingly reports that he has often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/). Nevertheless it is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll preferred it), and even some Emacs fans resort to it as a mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up faster than the bulkier versions of Emacs). See holy wars.
- vulcanized fiber — a leatherlike substance made by compression of layers of paper or cloth that have been treated with acids or zinc chloride, used chiefly for electric insulation.