17-letter words containing f, a, l, c
- first call on sth — If you have first call on something, you will be asked before anyone else whether you want to buy or use it.
- first-aid classes — classes which teach people how to give immediate medical help in an emergency
- flagrante delicto — Law. in the very act of committing the offense.
- flat as a pancake — without any curves or bumps
- flickertail state — North Dakota (used as a nickname).
- flight of capital — When people lose confidence in a particular economy or market and withdraw their investment from it, you can refer to a flight of capital from that economy or market.
- floating currency — a currency that is free to fluctuate against other currencies in accordance with market forces
- floating dry dock — a dock that floats and can be lowered in the water for the entrance of a ship, and then raised for use as a dry dock
- flowering currant — an ornamental shrub, Ribes sanguineum, growing to 2 to 3 metres (6 to 9ft) in height, with red, crimson, yellow, or white flowers: family Saxifragaceae
- flowering tobacco — any plant belonging to the genus Nicotiana, of the nightshade family, as N. alata and N. sylvestris, having clusters of fragrant flowers that usually bloom at night, grown as an ornamental.
- fluid lubrication — lubrication in which bearing surfaces are separated by an oil film sustained by the motion of the parts
- foolscap envelope — an envelope of dimensions suitable to hold an unfolded sheet of foolscap paper
- fort walton beach — a city in NW Florida.
- foucault pendulum — a pendulum that demonstrates the rotation of the earth by exhibiting an apparent change in its plane of oscillation.
- fourfold purchase — a tackle that is composed of a rope passed through two fourfold blocks in such a way as to provide mechanical power in the ratio of 1 to 5 or 1 to 4, depending on whether hauling is done on the running or the standing block and without considering friction. Compare tackle (def 2).
- fractal dimension — (mathematics) A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by "measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object. Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object. For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by repeatedly replacing ___ with _/\_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/\_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
- fractionalization — Separation into parts by fractionalizing.
- fraternal society — a club or other association, usually of men, having a limited membership and devoted to professional, religious, charitable, or social activities.
- frederick william — 1795–1861, king of Prussia 1840–61 (brother of William I of Prussia).
- french provincial — noting, pertaining to, or resembling a style of furnishings and decoration originating in the provinces of France in the 18th century, derived from but less ornate than styles then current in Paris and featuring simply carved wood furniture, often with decorative curved moldings.
- french somaliland — a former name of Djibouti (def 1).
- fulgencio batista — Fulgencio [fool-hen-syaw] /fulˈhɛn syɔ/ (Show IPA), (Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar) 1901–73, Cuban military leader: dictator of Cuba 1934–40; president 1940–44, 1952–59.
- full load current — A full load current is the largest current that a motor or other device is designed to carry under particular conditions.
- functional change — a change in the grammatical function of a word, as in the use of the noun input as a verb or the noun fun as an adjective.
- functional isomer — any of several structural isomers that have the same molecular formula but with the atoms connected in different ways and therefore falling into different functional groups.
- funicular railway — a short, very steep railway having two parallel sets of tracks, upon each of which runs a car or train raised or lowered by means of a cable that simultaneously lowers or raises the other car or train in such a way that the two are approximately counterbalanced.
- gamblers' fallacy — the fallacy that in a series of chance events the probability of one event occurring increases with the number of times another event has occurred in succession
- go for the collar — to go without a hit in a game
- graafian follicle — one of the small vesicles containing a developing ovum in the ovary of a mammal.
- grandfather clock — a pendulum floor clock having a case as tall as or taller than a person; tall-case clock; long-case clock.
- grey-faced petrel — a dark-coloured New Zealand petrel, Pterodroma macroptera gouldi
- hairline fracture — a very fine crack in a bone
- half-round chisel — a cold chisel with a semicircular cutting edge used for making narrow channels
- hall of residence — Halls of residence are buildings with rooms or flats, usually built by universities or colleges, in which students live during the term.
- hydrofluoric acid — a colorless, fuming, corrosive liquid, HF, an aqueous solution of hydrogen fluoride, used chiefly for etching glass.
- hydrofluorocarbon — Any of a class of partly chlorinated and fluorinated hydrocarbons, used as an alternative to chlorofluorocarbons in foam production, refrigeration, and other processes.
- infinitive clause — a clause containing an infinitive as its main or only verb form, as to speak clearly in Try to speak clearly.
- integral function — an entire function.
- interconfessional — common to or occurring between churches having different confessions.
- internal conflict — psychological struggle within the mind of a literary or dramatic character, the resolution of which creates the plot's suspense: Hamlet's inaction is caused by internal conflict.
- intraspecifically — Between individuals of the same species.
- john of lancaster — Duke of Bedford, 1389–1435, Bedford, John of Lancaster, Duke of.
- julian of norwich — ?1342–?1413, English mystic and anchoress: best known for the Revelations of Divine Love describing her visions
- jumping-off place — a place for use as a starting point: Paris was the jumping-off place for our tour of Europe.
- lance of courtesy — a lance having a blunt head to prevent serious injury by a jouster to an opponent.
- laplace transform — a map of a function, as a signal, defined especially for positive real values, as time greater than zero, into another domain where the function is represented as a sum of exponentials.
- law of reflection — the principle that when a ray of light, radar pulse, or the like, is reflected from a smooth surface the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence, and the incident ray, the reflected ray, and the normal to the surface at the point of incidence all lie in the same plane.
- law of refraction — the principle that for a ray, radar pulse, or the like, that is incident on the interface of two media, the ratio of the sine of the angle of incidence to the sine of the angle of refraction is equal to the ratio of the velocity of the ray in the first medium to the velocity in the second medium and the incident ray, refracted ray, and normal to the surface at the point of incidence all lie in the same plane.
- law of trichotomy — the property that for natural numbers a and b , either a is less than b , a equals b , or a is greater than b .
- line of scrimmage — an imaginary line parallel to the goal lines that passes from one sideline to the other through the point of the football closest to the goal line of each team.