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21-letter words containing f, a, t, i, l

  • macintosh file system — (file system)   A file on the Macintosh consists of two parts, called forks. The "data fork" contains the data which would normally be stored in the file on other operating systems. The "resource fork" contains a collection of arbitrary attribute/value pairs, including program segments, icon bitmaps, and parametric values. Yet more information regarding Macintosh files is stored by the Finder in a hidden file, called the "Desktop Database". Because of the complications in storing different parts of a Macintosh file in non-Macintosh file systems that only handle consecutive data in one part, it is common to only send the Data fork or to convert the Macintosh file into some other format before transferring it.
  • magnetic flux density — Also called magnetic flux density. a vector quantity used as a measure of a magnetic field. Symbol: B.
  • magnetocaloric effect — an increase or decrease of the temperature of a thermally isolated magnetic substance accompanying an increase or decrease in the intensity of a magnetic field.
  • magnetofluid dynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
  • magnificent riflebird — a bird of paradise, Craspedophora magnifica
  • make up for lost time — compensate for past inaction
  • modulus of elasticity — the ratio of the stress applied to a body or substance to the resulting strain within the elastic limit
  • multiplication factor — the ratio of the number of neutrons in a generation to the number of neutrons in the previous generation: when the multiplication factor is equal to or greater than one, a chain reaction is possible
  • muon-catalysed fusion — an experimental form of nuclear fusion in which hydrogen and deuterium muonic atoms are formed. Because the mass of the muon is much larger than that of the electron, the atoms are smaller, and the nuclei are close enough for fusion to occur
  • myocardial infarction — heart attack. Abbreviation: MI.
  • 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.
  • nitrosylsulfuric acid — a clear, straw-colored, oily, corrosive liquid, HNO 5 S, used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes.
  • operational amplifier — a high-gain, high-input impedance amplifier, usually an integrated circuit, that can perform mathematical operations when suitably wired.
  • pacific daylight time — the version of Pacific Standard Time that is in use when daylight saving time is being observed
  • partial reinforcement — the process of randomly rewarding an organism for making a response on only some of the occasions it makes it
  • 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
  • place of articulation — the location at which two speech organs approach or come together in producing a speech sound, as in the contact of the tongue and the teeth to form a dental sound. Also called point of articulation. Compare articulator (def 2).
  • play with a full deck — Nautical. a floorlike surface wholly or partially occupying one level of a hull, superstructure, or deckhouse, generally cambered, and often serving as a member for strengthening the structure of a vessel. the space between such a surface and the next such surface above: Our stateroom was on B deck.
  • point of articulation — place of articulation.
  • reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
  • referential integrity — (database)   A collection of properties which should be possessed by data in a relational database. For example, in a database of family members, if we enter A as a spouse of B, we should also enter B as a spouse of A. Similarly, if we remove one end of the relationship we should also remove the other.
  • safe in the knowledge — If you do something safe in the knowledge that something else is the case, you do the first thing confidently because you are sure of the second thing.
  • self-characterization — portrayal; description: the actor's characterization of a politician.
  • semantic differential — a technique for measuring the connotative meaning of concepts by having an individual rate each concept on a series of graduated scales, each scale defined by a pair of polar adjectives, as good–bad or strong–weak.
  • silicon tetrafluoride — a colorless, fuming gas, SiF 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of fluosilicic acid.
  • single parent benefit — a form of government funded financial assistance paid to single parents
  • social stratification — the act or an instance of stratifying.
  • sovereign wealth fund — an investment fund created using the financial assets of a national government
  • split-finger fastball — a type of fastball that sinks abruptly as it nears home plate, thrown with the grip used for a forkball
  • split-screen facility — a facility allowing different scenes to be shown on screen at the same time
  • spotted alfalfa aphid — a pale yellowish aphid, Therioaphis maculata, of the southern U.S., especially west of the Mississippi River, that is marked with black spots and has fine spines on its back: a pest mainly of alfalfa and some other legumes, as clover.
  • statistical inference — the theory, methods, and practice of forming judgments about the parameters of a population, usually on the basis of random sampling
  • stem-and-leaf diagram — a histogram in which the data points falling within each class interval are listed in order
  • supplementary benefit — (formerly) an extra amount of money that is paid to someone by the government, in addition to their normal income. Replaced by income support in 1988
  • surface of revolution — a surface formed by revolving a plane curve about a given line.
  • take one's (own) life — to commit suicide
  • tetrabromofluorescein — eosin (def 1).
  • 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 flickertail state — a name for the state of North Dakota
  • the rock of gibraltar — a limestone promontory at the tip of S Spain
  • 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 fly in the face of — If an action or belief flies in the face of accepted ideas or rules, it seems to completely oppose or contradict them.
  • to lay down your life — If someone lays down their life for another person, they die so that the other person can live.
  • to play second fiddle — If you play second fiddle to someone, your position is less important than theirs in something that you are doing together.
  • to risk life and limb — If someone risks life and limb, they do something very dangerous that may cause them to die or be seriously injured.
  • traffic control tower — an elevated structure for the visual observation and control of the air and ground traffic at an airport
  • transformational rule — Linguistics. a rule of transformational grammar that relates two phrase markers in the course of a derivation from the deep to the surface syntactic representation of a sentence, as by reordering, inserting, or deleting elements; a rule that converts deep structures into surface structures.
  • triethyl orthoformate — a colorless liquid, C 7 H 16 O 3 , used chiefly in organic synthesis.
  • universal affirmative — a proposition of the form “All S is P.” Symbol: A, a.
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