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24-letter words containing f, e, a, t, o

  • land of the midnight sun — any of those countries containing land within the Arctic Circle where there is a midnight sun in midsummer, especially Norway, Sweden, or Finland.
  • leave someone to himself — not to control or direct someone
  • like a fish out of water — out of place, out of one's element
  • line of least resistance — the easiest, but not necessarily the best or most honourable, course of action
  • liquid components of gas — Liquid components of gas are associated hydrocarbons in natural gas, which include ethane, propane, and butane.
  • local government officer — an employee of a local council
  • longitudinal coefficient — the ratio of the immersed volume of a hull to the product obtained by multiplying its length on the water line by the immersed area of the midship transverse section, all assuming a given depth of immersion of the hull.
  • look someone in the face — to look directly at a person without fear or shame
  • low voltage differential — (hardware)   (LVD) A method of driving SCSI cables that will be formalised in the SCSI-3 specifications. LVD uses less power than the current differential drive (HVD), is less expensive and will allow the higher speeds of Ultra-2 SCSI. LVD requires 3.3 Volts DC instead of 5 Volts DC for HVD.
  • mach interface generator — (tool, programming)   (MIG) An implementation of a subset of Matchmaker that generates C and C++ remote procedure call interfaces for interprocess communication between Mach tasks.
  • macintosh user interface — (operating system)   The graphical user interface used by Apple Computer's Macintosh family of personal computers, based on graphical representations of familiar office objects (sheets of paper, files, wastepaper bin, etc.) positioned on a two-dimensional "desktop" workspace. Programs and data files are represented on screen by small pictures (icons). An object is selected by moving a mouse over the real desktop which correspondingly moves the pointer on screen. When the pointer is over an icon on screen, the icon is selected by pressing the button on the mouse. A hierarchical file system is provided that lets a user "drag" a document (a file) icon into and out of a folder (directory) icon. Folders can also contain other folders and so on. To delete a document, its icon is dragged into a trash can icon. For people that are not computer enthusiasts, managing files on the Macintosh is easier than using the MS-DOS or Unix command-line interpreter. The Macintosh always displays a row of menu titles at the top of the screen. When a mouse button is pressed over a title, a pull-down menu appears below it. With the mouse button held down, the option within the menu is selected by pointing to it and then releasing the button. Unlike the IBM PC, which, prior to Microsoft Windows had no standard graphical user interface, Macintosh developers almost always conform to the Macintosh interface. As a result, users are comfortable with the interface of a new program from the start even if it takes a while to learn all the rest of it. They know there will be a row of menu options at the top of the screen, and basic tasks are always performed in the same way. Apple also keeps technical jargon down to a minimum. Although the Macintosh user interface provides consistency; it does not make up for an application program that is not designed well. Not only must the application's menus be clear and understandable, but the locations on screen that a user points to must be considered. Since the mouse is the major selecting method on a Macintosh, mouse movement should be kept to a minimum. In addition, for experienced typists, the mouse is a cumbersome substitute for well-designed keyboard commands, especially for intensive text editing.
  • make a production out of — to make an unnecessary fuss about
  • make one's presence felt — If you make your presence felt, you do something which makes people notice you or pay attention to you.
  • make the acquaintance of — to come into social contact with
  • maker interchange format — (MIF) A language used to describe a FrameMaker document in a text file. MIF is used to exchange information between FrameMaker and other applications.
  • mean length of utterance — the mean number of morphemes produced per sentence, used especially as a measure of child language development. Abbreviation: MLU.
  • mediterranean flour moth — a small cosmopolitan moth, Anagasta kuehniella, whose larvae damage stored foodstuffs, as grain and flour.
  • money-market certificate — a certificate of deposit held for a specified term earning a fixed interest rate keyed to the interest rate of U.S. Treasury bills.
  • multiple-valued function — function (def 4b).
  • near field communication — a short-range wireless communication system that uses radio waves to enable a phone or other mobile device to interact with another device or card reader: Near Field Communication essentially lets your phone replace your credit cards. Abbreviation: NFC.
  • non-proliferation treaty — an international agreement signed in 1968 which aims to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons
  • not ready for prime time — Usable, but only just so; not very robust; for internal use only. Said of a program or device. Often connotes that the thing will be made more solid Real Soon Now. This term comes from the ensemble name of the original cast of "Saturday Night Live", the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players". It has extra flavour for hackers because of the special (though now semi-obsolescent) meaning of prime time. Compare beta.
  • not to have the foggiest — to have no idea whatsoever
  • officers' training corps — part of the British Army which provides military leadership training to students at UK universities
  • open data-link interface — (networking, standard)   (ODI) A Novell-developed network card API that provides media and protocol independence. It allows the sharing of a single card by multiple transport layer protocols and resolves conflicts.
  • open shortest-path first — Open Shortest-Path First Interior Gateway Protocol
  • open software foundation — (body)   (OSF) A foundation created by nine computer vendors, (Apollo, DEC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Bull, Nixdorf, Philips, Siemens and Hitachi) to promote "Open Computing". It is planned that common operating systems and interfaces, based on developments of Unix and the X Window System will be forthcoming for a wide range of different hardware architectures. OSF announced the release of the industry's first open operating system - OSF/1 on 23 October 1990.
  • particulate fluidization — Particulate fluidization is a condition when particles in a fluidized bed are individually suspended.
  • passive balance of trade — a negative balance of trade
  • permeability coefficient — the volume of an incompressible fluid that will flow in unit time through a unit cube of a porous substance across which a unit pressure difference is maintained
  • photomechanical transfer — a method of producing photographic prints or offset printing plates from paper negatives by a chemical transfer process rather than by exposure to light
  • pluck sth out of the air — If you say that someone plucks a figure, name, or date out of the air, you mean that they say it without thinking much about it before they speak.
  • portable document format — (file format)   (PDF) The native file format for Adobe Systems' Acrobat. PDF is the file format for representing documents in a manner that is independent of the original application software, hardware, and operating system used to create those documents. A PDF file can describe documents containing any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device-independent and resolution independent format. These documents can be one page or thousands of pages, very simple or extremely complex with a rich use of fonts, graphics, colour, and images.
  • professional association — a body of persons engaged in the same profession, formed usually to control entry into the profession, maintain standards, and represent the profession in discussions with other bodies
  • professional corporation — a corporation formed by one or more licensed practitioners, especially medical or legal, to operate their practices on a corporate plan. Abbreviation: PC, P.C.
  • program information file — (file format)   Under Windows, a file providing information on how a non-Windows application program should be run, including how much memory should be allocated to it and what graphics interface it requires.
  • public relations officer — a person who is responsible for communications with the public
  • pure functional language — purely functional language
  • put the fear of god into — a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm. Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity.
  • quadrature of the circle — the insoluble problem of constructing, by the methods of Euclidean geometry, a square equal in area to a given circle.
  • republic of south africa — Republic of, a country in S Africa; member of the Commonwealth of Nations until 1961. 472,000 sq. mi. (1,222,480 sq. km). Capitals: Pretoria and Cape Town.
  • ricardian theory of rent — economic rent.
  • rocky mountain whitefish — mountain whitefish.
  • schizoaffective disorder — a psychotic disorder in which symptoms of schizophrenia and affective disorder occur simultaneously.
  • see someone hanged first — to refuse absolutely to do what one has been asked
  • senegambia confederation — an economic and political union (1982–89) between Senegal and The Gambia
  • serial interface adaptor — (SIA) The Ethernet driver chip used on a Filtabyte Ethernet card.
  • shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
  • single transferable vote — of or relating to a system of voting in which voters list the candidates in order of preference. Any candidate achieving a predetermined proportion of the votes in a constituency is elected. Votes exceeding this amount and those cast for the bottom candidate are redistributed according to the stated preferences. Redistribution continues until all the seats are filled
  • standard housing benefit — a rebate of a proportion of a person's eligible housing costs paid by a local authority and calculated on the basis of level of income and family size
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