16-letter words containing f, e, a
- autofluorescence — (biology, microscopy) Self-induced fluorescence.
- autotransformers — Plural form of autotransformer.
- auxiliary rafter — a rafter reinforcing a principal rafter.
- avail oneself of — to make use of to one's advantage
- axis of symmetry — Mathematics. a straight line for which every point on a given curve has corresponding to it another point such that the line connecting the two points is bisected by the given line.
- bachelor of arts — a degree conferred on a person who has successfully completed his or her undergraduate studies, usually in a branch of the liberal arts or humanities
- balance of power — The balance of power is the way in which power is distributed between rival groups or countries.
- balance of trade — A country's balance of trade is the difference in value, over a period of time, between the goods it imports and the goods it exports.
- balance transfer — the act of transferring debt from one credit card to another, assuming that the second card has better terms or interest rates than the first
- band-pass filter — a filter that transmits only those currents having a frequency lying within specified limits
- barrier of ideas — the representations of objects which certain accounts of perception interpose between the objects themselves and our awareness of them, so that, as critics argue, we can never know whether there is in reality anything which resembles our perceptions
- be of assistance — Someone or something that is of assistance to you is helpful or useful to you.
- be out of breath — If you are out of breath, you are breathing very quickly and with difficulty because you have been doing something energetic.
- be the making of — to cause the success of
- beautiful people — wealthy, fashionable people of the leisure class
- beefsteak fungus — an edible reddish bracket fungus, Fistulina hepatica, that grows esp on oak trees and oozes a bloodlike juice
- beefsteak tomato — a very large fleshy variety of tomato
- bells of ireland — an annual garden plant, Moluccella laevis, whose flowers have a green cup-shaped calyx: family Lamiaceae (labiates)
- beneficial owner — a person entitled to receive the profits or proceeds of property
- benzoate of soda — sodium benzoate
- best-before date — a date on packaged food indicating how long it is safe to keep it
- beta coefficient — a measure of the extent to which a particular security rises or falls in value in response to market movements
- big bag of pages — (BIBOP) Where data objects are tagged with some kind of descriptor (giving their size or type for example) memory can be saved by storing objects with the same descriptor in one "page" of memory. The most significant bits of an object's address are used as the BIBOP page number. This is looked up in a BIBOP table to find the descriptor for all objects in that page. This idea is similar to the "zones" used in some Lisp systems (e.g. LeLisp).
- bill of exchange — (now chiefly in foreign transactions) a document, usually negotiable, containing an instruction to a third party to pay a stated sum of money at a designated future date or on demand
- binuclear family — a social unit composed of an extended family, usually the children and subsequent spouses of divorced parents.
- bird of paradise — A bird of paradise is a songbird which is found mainly in New Guinea. The male birds have very brightly coloured feathers.
- bird-of-paradise — Also called bird-of-paradise flower. any of several plants of the genus Strelitzia, native to southern Africa, especially S. reginae, having a large, showy orange and blue inflorescence.
- blackwater fever — a rare and serious complication of malaria, characterized by massive destruction of red blood cells, producing dark red or blackish urine
- blue dawn-flower — a tropical American vine, Ipomoea acuminata, of the morning glory family, having large, funnel-shaped flowers that turn from blue to pink.
- blue in the face — the pure color of a clear sky; the primary color between green and violet in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 450 and 500 nm.
- boarding officer — a coastguard who boards ships suspected of carrying illegal cargoes or posing a security risk
- bonneville flats — an area of salt flats in the W part of Great Salt Lake Desert, in NW Utah: site of automobile speed tests.
- book of the dead — in ancient Egypt, a book of prayers and charms meant to help the soul in the afterworld
- bracknell forest — a unitary authority in SE England, in E Berkshire. Pop: 110 100 (2003 est). Area: 109 sq km (42 sq miles)
- brain-fever bird — an Indian cuckoo, Cuculus varius, that utters a repetitive call
- break faith with — If you break faith with someone you made a promise to or something you believed in, you stop acting in a way that supports them.
- break one's fast — to eat food for the first time after fasting, or for the first time in the day
- breakfast cereal — a type of food made from a cereal plant and commonly eaten at breakfast
- breath freshener — a mint or other sweet that one can suck or chew to release a scent that freshens the breath
- bridge financing — interim or emergency financing through a short- or medium-term loan (bridge loan)
- bridging finance — money borrowed temporarily to cover the period before a particular event occurs, for example, until a house purchaser receives money under a mortgage
- broomrape family — the plant family Orobanchaceae, characterized by scaly, leafless herbaceous plants that are parasitic on the roots of other plants and have irregular flowers and many-seeded capsular fruit, and including beechdrops, broomrape, and squawroot.
- buckwheat family — the plant family Polygonaceae, characterized by herbaceous plants, vines, shrubs, and trees having stems with swollen joints, simple leaves, small, petalless flowers, and fruit in the form of an achene, and including the buckwheat, dock, knotweed, rhubarb, sea grape, and smartweed.
- bundled software — software sold as part of a package with computers or other hardware or software
- burnet saxifrage — a Eurasian umbelliferous plant of the genus Pimpinella, having umbrella-like clusters of white or pink flowers
- buttercup family — the plant family Ranunculaceae, typified by mostly herbaceous plants having usually alternate leaves, multistaminate flowers sometimes lacking petals but with colorful sepals, and including the anemone, buttercup, clematis, columbine, delphinium, and monkshood.
- butterfly ballot — a ballot paper in the form of two leaves extending from a central spine
- butterfly damper — a damper, as in a flue, that rotates about a central axis across its face.
- cabbage root fly — a dipterous fly, Erioischia brassicae, whose larvae feed on the roots and stems of cabbages and other brassicas: family Muscidae (houseflies, etc)
- calcium fluoride — a white, crystalline compound, CaF 2 , insoluble in water, occurring in nature as the mineral fluorite: used as a flux in metallurgy and as a decay preventive in dentifrices.