17-letter words containing f, e, a, t
- cattle tick fever — Texas fever
- center of gravity — The center of gravity of an object is a point in it. If this point is above the base of the object, it stays stable, rather than falling over.
- centre of gravity — The centre of gravity of an object is a point in it. If this point is above the base of the object, it stays stable, rather than falling over.
- centrifugal brake — a safety mechanism on a hoist, crane, etc, that consists of revolving brake shoes that are driven outwards by centrifugal force into contact with a fixed brake drum when the rope drum revolves at excessive speed
- centrifugal force — In physics, centrifugal force is the force that makes objects move outwards when they are spinning around something or travelling in a curve.
- centripetal force — a force that acts inwards on any body that rotates or moves along a curved path and is directed towards the centre of curvature of the path or the axis of rotation
- certified teacher — a teacher who has the required credentials to teach in a particular place
- character defense — a personality trait, as a habitual tendency to idealize or rationalize, that serves some unconscious defensive purpose.
- charter of rights — a section of the Canadian Constitution containing a statement of the basic rights of citizens of Canada.
- choanoflagellates — Plural form of choanoflagellate.
- coffee-table book — A coffee-table book is a large expensive book with a lot of pictures, which is designed to be looked at rather than to be read properly, and is usually placed where people can see it easily.
- coin of the realm — legal tender.
- coliform bacteria — a large group of bacteria inhabiting the intestinal tract of humans and animals that may cause disease and whose presence in water is an indicator of faecal pollution
- complete fracture — a bone fracture in which the bone is split completely across.
- compound fracture — A compound fracture is a fracture in which the broken bone sticks through the skin.
- conscript fathers — august legislators, esp Roman senators
- consolidated fund — a fund into which tax revenue is paid in order to meet standing charges, esp interest payments on the national debt
- continental drift — Continental drift is the slow movement of the Earth's continents towards and away from each other.
- continental shelf — The continental shelf is the area which forms the edge of a continent, ending in a steep slope to the depths of the ocean.
- contraflow system — a system of traffic lanes whose normal direction is reversed to allow traffic to move during repairs or an accident
- court of chancery — (in the US) a court of equity
- court-of-chancery — chancery (def 4a).
- cream of the crop — the best of a group
- creature comforts — Creature comforts are the things that you need to feel comfortable in a place, for example good food and modern equipment.
- creature of habit — If you say that someone is a creature of habit, you mean that they usually do the same thing at the same time each day, rather than doing new and different things.
- credit facilities — a type of loan made by a bank
- culture-fair test — a test, usually for intelligence, that does not put anyone taking it at a disadvantage, esp regarding material or cultural background
- cut a good figure — to appear or behave well
- cut a poor figure — to appear or behave badly
- darwinian fitness — fitness (def 3).
- darwinian-fitness — health.
- de facto standard — A widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol which has not been ratified by any official standards body, such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market share. The archetypal example of a de facto standard is the IBM PC which, despite is many glaring technical deficiencies, has gained such a large share of the personal computer market that it is now popular simply because it is popular and therefore enjoys fierce competition in pricing and software development.
- de-baathification — the process of removing the members and influence of the Ba'ath Party from public office in Iraq following the US-led invasion of 2003
- death certificate — A death certificate is an official certificate signed by a doctor which states the cause of a person's death.
- dedifferentiating — Present participle of dedifferentiate.
- dedifferentiation — the reversion of the cells of differentiated tissue to a less specialized form
- defamiliarisation — (arts) The representation of objects anew, in a way that we do not recognize, or that changes our reading of them.
- defamiliarization — Art, Literature. a theory and technique, originating in the early 20th century, in which an artistic or literary work presents familiar objects or situations in an unfamiliar way, prolonging the perceptive process and allowing for a fresh perspective.
- defence secretary — the member of a government who is responsible for the country's armed forces
- deficit financing — Deficit financing is the financing of government spending through borrowing rather than revenue.
- definite integral — the evaluation of the indefinite integral between two limits, representing the area between the given function and the x-axis between these two values of x
- differentiability — The ability to be differentiated.
- differential gear — differential (def 7).
- differential line — (hardware) A kind of electrical connection using two wires, one of which carries the normal signal (V) and the other carries an inverted version the signal (-V). A differential amplifier at the receiver subtracts the inverted signal from the normal signal to yield a signal proportional to V. This subtraction is intended to cancel out any noise induced in the wires, on the assmption that the same level of noise will have been induced in both wires. Twisted pair wiring is often used to try to ensure that this is the case. The two wires might be connected at the receiver to separate analogue to digital converters and the subtraction performed digitally. The RS-422 serial line standard specifies differential drivers and receivers, whereas the earlier RS-232 standard does not. Opposite: single ended.
- differential rate — a special lower rate, as one charged by one of two or more competing businesses.
- differential tone — a musical sound sometimes heard when two loud notes are sounded together, lower in pitch than either
- dimethylformamide — a colourless liquid widely used as a solvent and sometimes as a catalyst. Formula: (CH3)2NCHO
- disidentification — The act of disidentifying, or rejecting a personal or group identity.
- double quatrefoil — a charge having the form of a foil with eight leaves, used especially as the cadency mark of a ninth son.
- double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.