18-letter words containing f, a, l
- california fuchsia — a North American onagraceous plant, Zauschneria californica, with tubular scarlet flowers
- california rosebay — a Pacific coast shrub or tree (Rhododendron californicum) of the heath family, with rosy or purplish flowers
- california-fuchsia — a plant belonging to the genus Fuchsia, of the evening primrose family, including many varieties cultivated for their handsome drooping flowers.
- cartilaginous fish — any fish of the class Chondrichthyes, including the sharks, skates, and rays, having a skeleton composed entirely of cartilage
- cauliflower cheese — a dish of cauliflower with a cheese sauce, eaten hot
- cauliflower fungus — a large edible white to yellowish cauliflowerlike mushroom, Sparassis radicata, widely distributed in North America.
- centrifugal clutch — an automatic clutch in which the friction surfaces are engaged by weighted levers acting under centrifugal force at a certain speed of rotation
- cereal leaf beetle — an Old World leaf beetle, Oulema melanopus, introduced into North America in 1962: a serious pest of small grains, especially oats and cereal grasses.
- children of israel — the Jews; Hebrews
- chlorofluorocarbon — Chlorofluorocarbons are the same as CFCs.
- church of scotland — the established church in Scotland, Calvinist in doctrine and Presbyterian in constitution
- classified section — the part of a publication that contains classified advertising
- claw-and-ball foot — ball-and-claw foot.
- coffee-table music — unadventurous music
- committed facility — an agreement by a bank to provide a customer with funds up to a specified limit at a specified rate of interest
- compliance officer — a specialist, usually a lawyer, employed by a financial group operating in a variety of fields and for multiple clients to ensure that no conflict of interest arises and that all obligations and regulations are complied with
- considered harmful — (programming, humour) A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
- cooking facilities — equipment necessary for cooking
- crested flycatcher — any of various tyrant flycatchers (esp. genus Myiarchus) with a prominent crest
- criminal profiling — the analysis of a person's psychological and behavioural characteristics, so as to assess whether they are likely to have committed a crime under investigation
- crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
- cultural diffusion — act of diffusing; state of being diffused.
- curvature of field — a monochromatic aberration of a lens or other optical system in which the focal surface is curved, the refracted image of an object oriented perpendicular to the axis of the lens lying on a curved surface rather than in a plane perpendicular to the axis.
- data flow analysis — (programming) A process to discover the dependencies between different data items manipulated by a program. The order of execution in a data driven language is determined solely by the data dependencies. For example, given the equations 1. X = A + B 2. B = 2 + 2 3. A = 3 + 4 a data-flow analysis would find that 2 and 3 must be evaluated before 1. Since there are no data dependencies between 2 and 3, they may be evaluated in any order, including in parallel. This technique is implemented in hardware in some pipelined processors with multiple functional units. It allows instructions to be executed as soon as their inputs are available, independent of the original program order.
- dead-letter office — an office where undeliverable letters were taken for storage
- declaration of war — a formal statement made by one country to another that a state of war now exists between them
- defense calculator — IBM 701
- deferred liability — income received in advance and carried forward as a liability until the associated goods, services, or benefits are delivered
- definitive plumage — the plumage of a bird that, once attained, does not change significantly in color or pattern for the rest of the bird's life.
- departure platform — a raised area at a railway station from which passengers can board trains prior to their departing
- diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
- division of labour — a system of organizing the manufacture of an article in a series of separate specialized operations, each of which is carried out by a different worker or group of workers
- due process of law — the administration of justice in accordance with established rules and principles
- dysfunctionalities — Plural form of dysfunctionality.
- economies of scale — Economies of scale are the financial advantages that a company gains when it produces large quantities of products.
- eleanor of castile — 1246–90, Spanish wife of Edward I of England. Eleanor Crosses were erected at each place at which her body rested between Nottingham, where she died, and London, where she is buried
- electrical failure — an instance when an electricity supply stops working
- electronic warfare — the military use of electronics to prevent or reduce an enemy's effective use and to protect friendly use of electromagnetic radiation equipment
- fall on one's feet — a plural of foot.
- fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
- fall-back position — an alternative plan
- fallot's tetralogy — a congenital heart disease in which there are four defects: pulmonary stenosis, enlarged right ventricle, a ventricular septal defect, and an aorta whose origin lies over the septal defect. In babies suffering this disease the defects can be corrected by surgery
- false imprisonment — the unlawful restraint of a person from exercising the right to freedom of movement.
- family-size packet — a packet large enough to be suitable for a family
- family-tree theory — a theory that describes language change in terms of genetically related languages developing in successive splits from a common parent language, such as Indo-European, as depicted by a family tree diagram.
- fantasy basketball — imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
- farewell-to-spring — a slender, showy plant, Clarkia amoena, of the evening primrose family, native to western North America, having satiny, cup-shaped, lilac-crimson or reddish-pink flowers and roundish fruit.
- farm the long acre — to graze cows on the verge of a road
- farmer in the dell — a game, accompanied by a song with several verses, in which one person, designated as the farmer, occupies the center of a circle of persons and is joined in the circle by other players designated as wife, child, nurse, cat, rat, and cheese, these then leaving the circle in order except for the one designated as cheese, who is left standing alone in the circle at the end.
- farmer-labor party — a political party in Minnesota, founded in 1920 and merged with the Democratic Party in 1944.