19-letter words containing f, a, r, c
- half wave rectifier — A half wave rectifier removes the negative component of an alternating signal leaving only the positive part.
- half-wave rectifier — a rectifier that changes only one half of a cycle of alternating current into a pulsating, direct current.
- halt and catch fire — (humour, processor) (HCF) Any of several undocumented and semi-mythical machine instructions with destructive side-effects, supposedly included for test purposes on several well-known architectures going as far back as the IBM 360. The Motorola 6800 microprocessor was the first for which an HCF opcode became widely known. This instruction caused the processor to read every memory location sequentially until reset.
- hyperfocal distance — the distance, at a given f number, between a camera lens and the nearest point (hyperfocal point) having satisfactory definition when focused at infinity.
- identification card — a card giving identifying data about a person, as full name, address, age, and color of hair and eyes, and often containing a photograph: for use as identification at a place of employment, school, club, etc.
- identification mark — barcode or serial number
- immigration officer — official administrating incoming foreigners
- imperial preference — a proposed system whereby free trade and levelled tariffs would exist between nations belonging to the British Commonwealth, in order to increase the prosperity of and unity between these nation
- in commemoration of — in remembrance of
- in consideration of — the act of considering; careful thought; meditation; deliberation: I will give your project full consideration.
- incomplete fracture — a fracture extending partly across the bone.
- index of refraction — a number indicating the speed of light in a given medium as either the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to that in the given medium (absolute index of refraction) or the ratio of the speed of light in a specified medium to that in the given medium (relative index of refraction) Symbol: n.
- index-tracking fund — an investment fund that is administered so that its value changes in line with a given share index
- information content — the amount of information in something
- information officer — someone whose job is to give information to people
- information science — the study of the nature, collection, and management of information and of its uses, especially involving computer storage and retrievals.
- information service — a service which provides information
- inglenook fireplace — a large fireplace with a space on either side
- interactive fiction — an adventure or mystery story, usually presented as a video game or book, in which the player or reader is given choices as to how the storyline is to develop or the mystery is to be solved.
- interesterification — transesterification.
- interface architect — An interface builder for Motif distributed by Hewlett-Packard (see UIMX).
- interfacial tension — the surface tension at the interface of two liquids.
- interferometrically — By means of interferometry.
- invasion of privacy — an encroachment upon the right to be let alone or to be free from publicity.
- italian east africa — a former Italian territory in E Africa, formed in 1936 by the merging of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland with newly conquered Ethiopia: taken by the British Imperial forces 1941.
- jacques montgolfier — Jacques Étienne [zhahk ey-tyen] /ʒɑk eɪˈtyɛn/ (Show IPA), 1745–99, and his brother Joseph Michel [zhaw-zef mee-shel] /ʒɔˈzɛf miˈʃɛl/ (Show IPA) 1740–1810, French aeronauts: inventors of the first practical balloon 1783.
- juan de fuca strait — strait between Vancouver Island and NW Wash.: c. 100 mi (161 km) long
- judicial conference — a conference of judges held to discuss improvements in methods or judicial procedure through court rules or otherwise.
- lagrangian function — kinetic potential.
- landrum-griffin act — an act of Congress (1959) outlawing secondary boycotts, requiring public disclosure of the financial records of unions, and guaranteeing the use of secret ballots in union voting.
- leading aircraftman — the rank above aircraftman
- left-luggage locker — a coin-operated locker in which luggage can be left
- library of congress — one of the major library collections in the world, located in Washington, D.C., and functioning in some ways as the national library of the U.S. although not officially designated as such: established by Congress in 1800 for service to its members, but now also serving government agencies, other libraries, and the public.
- lift the curtain on — to begin
- line of demarcation — a separation between things deemed to be distinct
- logical shift right — logical shift
- lyon office of arms — Heralds' Office.
- magnetomotive force — a scalar quantity that is a measure of the sources of magnetic flux in a magnetic circuit. Abbreviation: mmf.
- make oneself scarce — insufficient to satisfy the need or demand; not abundant: Meat and butter were scarce during the war.
- malice aforethought — a predetermination to commit an unlawful act without just cause or provocation (applied chiefly to cases of first-degree murder).
- manufacturing plant — factory
- maratha confederacy — a loose league of states in central and western India, c1750–1818.
- mary wollstonecraft — Mary (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin) 1759–97, English author and feminist (mother of Mary Shelley).
- mayor of the palace — one of a line of hereditary administrative lieutenants to the Merovingian kings who eventually took over royal function and title in the Frankish kingdoms; a palatine.
- means of production — resources: equipment, workers
- medical certificate — a document stating the result of a satisfactory medical examination
- minimum iron fabric — cloth used to make clothes that require little ironing
- miracle of st. mark — a painting (1548) by Tintoretto.
- nasty piece of work — malicious person
- neats vs. scruffies — (artificial intelligence, jargon) The label used to refer to one of the continuing holy wars in artificial intelligence research. This conflict tangles together two separate issues. One is the relationship between human reasoning and AI; "neats" tend to try to build systems that "reason" in some way identifiably similar to the way humans report themselves as doing, while "scruffies" profess not to care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the least as long as it works. More importantly, neats tend to believe that logic is king, while scruffies favour looser, more ad-hoc methods driven by empirical knowledge. To a neat, scruffy methods appear promiscuous, successful only by accident and not productive of insights about how intelligence actually works; to a scruffy, neat methods appear to be hung up on formalism and irrelevant to the hard-to-capture "common sense" of living intelligences.