16-letter words containing f, e, d, r
- confederationism — The advocacy of confederation as a means of government.
- confederationist — A supporter of confederation.
- confidence trick — A confidence trick is a trick in which someone deceives you by telling you something that is not true, often to trick you out of money.
- confused elderly — old and no longer having mental abilities sufficient for independent living
- corned beef hash — a dish consisting of corned beef chopped and mixed together with mashed potatoes and various other ingredients, then fried
- correction fluid — a fluid, usually white, that can be painted over a mistake in writing or typing so that the correct form can be written or typed on top
- cracked fraction — A cracked fraction is a petroleum fraction (= a portion separated according to a physical property) that has been broken down from a fraction with larger molecules.
- croydon facelift — the tightening effect on the skin of a woman's face caused by securing the hair at the back of the head in a tight ponytail
- curried function — (mathematics, programming) A function of N arguments that is considered as a function of one argument which returns another function of N-1 arguments. E.g. in Haskell we can define: average :: Int -> (Int -> Int) (The parentheses are optional). A partial application of average, to one Int, e.g. (average 4), returns a function of type (Int -> Int) which averages its argument with 4. In uncurried languages a function must always be applied to all its arguments but a partial application can be represented using a lambda abstraction: \ x -> average(4,x) Currying is necessary if full laziness is to be applied to functional sub-expressions. It was named after the logician Haskell Curry but the 19th-century logician, Gottlob Frege was the first to propose it and it was first referred to in ["Uber die Bausteine der mathematischen Logik", M. Schoenfinkel, Mathematische Annalen. Vol 92 (1924)]. Stefan Kahrs <[email protected]> reported hearing somebody in Germany trying to introduce "scho"nen" for currying and "finkeln" for "uncurrying". The verb "scho"nen" means "to beautify"; "finkeln" isn't a German word, but it suggests "to fiddle".
- dark of the moon — the period during which the moon is not visible.
- darwin's finches — the finches of the subfamily Geospizinae of the Galapagos Islands, showing great variation in bill structure and feeding habits: provided Darwin with evidence to support his theory of evolution
- day of reckoning — If someone talks about the day of reckoning, they mean a day or time in the future when people will be forced to deal with an unpleasant situation which they have avoided until now.
- deboursification — (jargon) Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: sneck.
- debt forgiveness — the action or process of forgiving people their debts
- decimal fraction — a fraction whose denominator is some power of 10, usually indicated by a dot (decimal point or point) written before the numerator: as 0.4 = 4/10; 0.126 = 126/1000.
- dedifferentiated — That has undergone dedifferentiation.
- defective number — a positive number that is greater than the sum of all positive integers that are submultiples of it, as 10, which is greater than the sum of 1, 2, and 5.
- deferred annuity — an annuity that commences not less than one year after the final purchase premium
- deferred success — (in Britain) a euphemism suggested as an alternative to ‘failure’, in order not to stigmatize pupils who have not achieved a pass in a particular subject
- definite article — The word 'the' is sometimes called the definite article.
- deflationary gap — a situation in which total spending in an economy is insufficient to buy all the output that can be produced with full employment
- deflecting force — the apparent deflection (Coriolis acceleration) of a body in motion with respect to the earth, as seen by an observer on the earth, attributed to a fictitious force (Coriolis force) but actually caused by the rotation of the earth and appearing as a deflection to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and a deflection to the left in the Southern Hemisphere.
- degrees of frost — When someone says that there are a particular number of degrees of frost they mean that the temperature is that number of degrees below freezing point.
- depart this life — to die
- dictionary flame — [Usenet] An attempt to sidetrack a debate away from issues by insisting on meanings for key terms that presuppose a desired conclusion or smuggle in an implicit premise. A common tactic of people who prefer argument over definitions to disputes about reality. Compare spelling flame.
- direct free kick — a free kick awarded to a team as the result of a foul by an opposing player and from which a goal can be scored directly, without the ball being touched by another player.
- direction finder — a receiver with a loop antenna rotating on a vertical axis, used to ascertain the direction of incoming radio waves.
- disenfranchising — Present participle of disenfranchise.
- disfranchisement — to deprive (a person) of a right of citizenship, as of the right to vote.
- distrito federal — Federal District. Abbreviation: D.F.
- diversifications — Plural form of diversification.
- do oneself proud — to do extremely well
- do-it-yourselfer — an advocate or enthusiast of do-it-yourself
- documentary film — factual, informative film
- dolce far niente — pleasing inactivity.
- dome of the rock — a shrine in Jerusalem at the site from which Muhammad ascended through the seven heavens to the throne of God: built on the site of the Jewish Temple.
- dorothy canfield — Dorothy, Fisher, Dorothy Canfield.
- drag coefficient — a measure of the drag of an object in a moving fluid, esp air
- droves of people — large numbers of people
- edsel ford range — a mountain range in Antarctica, E of the Ross Sea.
- embroidery frame — a frame in the form of a pair of (usually circular) rings, designed to keep the fabric taut while an embroiderer works on it
- faintheartedness — The quality or state of being fainthearted.
- fair-trade price — the price set for a commodity by the Fairtrade Foundation
- false beechdrops — either of two parasitic or saprophytic plants of the genus Monotropa, especially the tawny or reddish M. hypopithys (false beechdrops) of eastern North America.
- false dragonhead — a North American plant, Physostegia virginiana, of the mint family, having a spike of tubular, two-lipped, pink or white flowers.
- fancy dress ball — a ball at which the guests wear fancy dress
- fandango on core — (jargon, programming) (Unix/C, from the Mexican dance) In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing a core dump, or corrupts the malloc arena in such a way as to cause mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to have "done a fandango on core". On low-end personal machines without an MMU, this can corrupt the operating system itself, causing massive lossage. Other frenetic dances such as the rhumba, cha-cha, or watusi, may be substituted. See aliasing bug, precedence lossage, smash the stack, memory leak, memory smash, overrun screw, core.
- farewell address — (initial capital letters) U.S. History. a statement that President George Washington published in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1796 to announce that he would not run for a third term and to give his views on foreign and domestic policy.
- farmer's reducer — a solution of ferricyanide and hypo for reducing density and increasing contrast in a negative.
- fashion designer — creator of clothing designs