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21-letter words containing f, a, r, t, h, e

  • mother-of-pearl glass — an American art glassware having colored glass set into indentations in a thickness of opaque glass, the whole covered with clear glass and etched slightly with acid.
  • nightmare file system — Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a higher spl level). Then another machine tries to reach either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is frozen - worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great misfeature). ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of Unix's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none of these problems in the early 1970s. See also broadcast storm.
  • north pacific current — a warm current flowing eastward across the Pacific Ocean.
  • of time and the river — a novel (1935) by Thomas Wolfe.
  • one foot in the grave — near to death
  • part of the furniture — If you describe someone or something as part of the furniture, you are suggesting that they have been somewhere such as their place of work for such a long time that it is hard to imagine that place without them.
  • pathfinder prospectus — a prospectus regarding the flotation of a new company that contains only sufficient details to test the market reaction
  • pellitory-of-the-wall — an urticaceous plant, P. diffusa, of the S and W European genus Parietaria, which grows in crevices and has long narrow leaves and small pink flowers
  • profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service
  • promoter of the faith — devil's advocate (def 2).
  • reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
  • record of achievement — a statement of the personal and educational development of each pupil
  • reinforcement therapy — a behavior modification technique in which appropriate behavior is strengthened through systematic reinforcement.
  • rutherford scattering — the scattering of an alpha particle through a large angle with respect to the original direction of motion of the particle, caused by an atom (Rutherford atom) with most of the mass and all of the positive electric charge concentrated at a center or nucleus.
  • satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
  • self-characterization — portrayal; description: the actor's characterization of a politician.
  • sieve of eratosthenes — a method of obtaining prime numbers by sifting out the composite numbers from the set of natural numbers so that only prime numbers remain.
  • south pacific current — an ocean current that flows E in the South Pacific Ocean parallel to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
  • sovereign wealth fund — an investment fund created using the financial assets of a national government
  • staffordshire terrier — former name of American Staffordshire terrier.
  • stare one in the face — to be glaringly obvious or imminent
  • stations of the cross — a series of 14 crosses, often accompanied by 14 pictures or carvings, arranged in order around the walls of a church, to commemorate 14 supposed stages in Christ's journey to Calvary
  • steer clear of sb/sth — If you steer clear of someone or something, you deliberately avoid them.
  • teacher certification — official qualifications for educators
  • the acting profession — actors considered as a group
  • the apple of your eye — If you say that someone is the apple of your eye, you mean that they are very important to you and you are extremely fond of them.
  • the barber of seville — Italian Il barbiere di Siviglia. a comic opera (1816) by Gioacchino Rossini based on a comedy (1775) by Beaumarchais.
  • the battle of britain — from August to October 1940, the prolonged bombing of S England by the German Luftwaffe and the successful resistance by the RAF Fighter Command, which put an end to the German plan of invading Britain
  • the birth of a nation — an American film (1915), directed by D. W. Griffith.
  • the break of day/dawn — The break of day or the break of dawn is the time when it begins to grow light after the night.
  • the cream of the crop — You can refer to the best people or things of a particular kind as the cream of the crop.
  • the face of the earth — You can use the expression 'on the face of the earth' to mean 'in the whole world', when you are emphasizing a statement that you are making or making a very exaggerated statement.
  • the fall of the cards — the chance distribution of cards in a given deal
  • the fast track to sth — the quickest or most direct route or system
  • the flickertail state — a name for the state of North Dakota
  • the letter of the law — If you say that someone keeps to the letter of the law , you mean that they act according to what is actually written in the law, rather than according to the general principles of it, especially when you disapprove of this.
  • the order of the bath — an order of knighthood founded by George I in 1725. It consists of the sovereign, the Great Master, and three classes of member: Knight (or Dame) Grand Cross, Knight (or Dame) Commander, and Companion
  • the rock of gibraltar — a limestone promontory at the tip of S Spain
  • the san andreas fault — a geological fault in California
  • the shipping forecast — a radio broadcast made by the BBC of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the British Isles
  • the stationery office — (in the UK) the company that supplies the civil service with all its office supplies, machinery, printing and binding, etc
  • the supreme sacrifice — the sacrifice of one's life
  • theater of operations — the part of the theater of war, including a combat zone and a communications zone, that is engaged in military operations and their support.
  • theater of the absurd — theater in which standard or naturalistic conventions of plot, characterization, and thematic structure are ignored or distorted in order to convey the irrational or fictive nature of reality and the essential isolation of humanity in a meaningless world.
  • theatre of the absurd — drama in which normal conventions and dramatic structure are ignored or modified in order to present life as irrational or meaningless
  • to fall into the trap — If someone falls into the trap of doing something, they think or behave in a way which is not wise or sensible.
  • to feather one's nest — If you say that someone is feathering their nest, you mean that they are getting a lot of money out of something, so that they can lead a comfortable life.
  • to have green fingers — If someone has green fingers, they are very good at gardening and their plants grow well.
  • triethyl orthoformate — a colorless liquid, C 7 H 16 O 3 , used chiefly in organic synthesis.
  • what the future holds — If you wonder what the future holds, you wonder what will happen in the future.
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