25-letter words containing f, e, i, s

on the horns of a dilemma — one of the bony, permanent, hollow paired growths, often curved and pointed, that project from the upper part of the head of certain ungulate mammals, as cattle, sheep, goats, or antelopes.
on the side of the angels — If you say that someone is on the side of the angels, you believe very strongly that what they are doing is right.
personal flotation device — a life preserver, life jacket, or other device for keeping a person afloat in the water. Abbreviation: PFD.
poynting-robertson effect — the slowing down and consequent spiraling inward of small particles orbiting the sun, due to their interaction with solar radiation.
preferred ordinary shares — shares issued by a company that rank between preference shares and ordinary shares in the payment of dividends
principal nursing officer — a grade of nurse concerned with administration in the British National Health Service
principle of least action — the principle that motion between any two points in a conservative dynamical system is such that the action has a minimum value with respect to all paths between the points that correspond to the same energy
profit and loss statement — A profit and loss statement is a statement that is compiled at the end of a financial year showing that year's revenue and expense items and indicating gross and net profit or loss.
progressive federal party — a political party, formed in 1977 by a merger between the Progressive Party and members of the United Party, supporting qualified franchise for all South Africans irrespective of race, colour, or creed; merged with other parties in 1989 to form the Democratic Party
public key infrastructure — (cryptography, communications) (PKI) A system of public key encryption using digital certificates from Certificate Authorities and other registration authorities that verify and authenticate the validity of each party involved in an electronic transaction. PKIs are currently evolving and there is no single PKI nor even a single agreed-upon standard for setting up a PKI. However, nearly everyone agrees that reliable PKIs are necessary before electronic commerce can become widespread.
pull/get one's finger out — If you tell someone to pull their finger out or to get their finger out, you are telling them rudely that you want them to start doing some work or making an effort.
put sth out of its misery — If you put an animal out of its misery, you kill it because it is sick or injured and cannot be cured or healed.
referentially transparent — referential transparency
saint joseph of arimathea — a wealthy member of the Sanhedrin, who obtained the body of Jesus after the Crucifixion and laid it in his own tomb (Matthew 27:57–60). Feast day: Mar 17 or July 31
shoot oneself in the foot — to damage one's own cause inadvertently
single document interface — (programming) (SDI) A limitation applying to an application program that only shows a single windows giving a view of one document at a time. The opposite is Multiple Document Interface (MDI).
single wingback formation — an offensive formation in which the wingback lines up outside of and about one yard behind an end, the quarterback lines up lateral to the wingback but about midway between the same end and the center, the fullback is three or four yards behind the middle of the line, and the tailback lines up one yard behind the fullback on the other side of the line from the wingback and quarterback.
single-lens reflex camera — a camera in which the image appears on a ground-glass viewer (focusing screen) after being reflected by a mirror or after passing through a prism or semitransparent glass; in one type (single-lens reflex camera) light passes through the same lens to both the ground glass and the film, while in another type (twin-lens reflex camera) light passes through one lens (viewing lens) to the ground glass and through a second lens (taking lens) to the film, the lenses being mechanically coupled for focusing.
slip/fall through the net — You use slip through the net or fall through the net to describe a situation where people are not properly cared for by the system that is intended to help them.
software through pictures — (programming, tool) (StP) A set of CASE tools distributed by Aonix.
specific fuel consumption — Specific fuel consumption is the amount of fuel consumed by a vehicle for each unit of power output.
take the sting out of sth — If something takes the sting out of a situation, it makes it less unpleasant.
tess of the d'urbervilles — a novel (1891) by Thomas Hardy.
the first epistle of john — an epistle attributed to the apostle John which counters claims that Jesus Christ came only in spirit and not in the flesh
the high priestess of sth — if you call a woman the high priestess of a particular thing, you are saying in a slightly mocking way that she is considered by people to be expert in that thing
the knives are out for sb — If a lot of people want something unpleasant to happen to someone, for example if they want them to lose their job, you can say that the knives are out for that person.
the leaning tower of pisa — the bell tower of Pisa Cathedral
the mother of parliaments — the British Parliament: the model and creator of many other Parliaments
the scholastic profession — the profession of teaching
the third epistle of john — an epistle attributed to the apostle John and addressed to a man called Gaius, who is praised in the letter
the trash heap of history — a figurative or imaginative place where forgotten things or people go
there are no flies on him — he is no fool
throw dust in the eyes of — to confuse or mislead
to be on first-name terms — (of two people) knowing each other well enough to call each other by their first names, rather than having to use a more formal title.
to catch sight of someone — If you catch sight of someone, you suddenly see them, often briefly.
to give someone free rein — If you give free rein to someone, you give them a lot of freedom to do what they want.
to have irons in the fire — If someone has a lot of irons in the fire, they are involved in several different activities or have several different plans.
to jump out of one's skin — If something makes you jump out of your skin, it surprises or shocks you very much.
to someone's satisfaction — If you do something to someone's satisfaction, they are happy with the way that you have done it.
track and field athletics — a collection of sporting events that involve running, sprinting, throwing, jumping and walking
trading standards officer — a person who works for a trading standards office
transport layer interface — (networking, programming) (TLI, or "Transport Level Interface") A protocol-independent interface for accessing network facilities, modelled after the ISO transport layer (level 4), that first appeared in Unix SVR3. TLI is defined by SVID as transport mechanism for networking interfaces, in preference to sockets, which are biased toward IP and friends. A disavantage is that a process cannot use read/write directly, but has to use backends using stdin and stdout to communicate with the network connection. TLI is implemented in SVR4 using the STREAMS interface. It adds no new system calls, just a library, libnsl_s.a. The major functions are t_open, t_bind, t_connect, t_listen, t_accept, t_snd, t_rcv, read, write. According to the Solaris t_open man page, XTI (X/OPEN Transport Interface) evolved from TLI, and supports the TLI API for compatibility, with some variations on semantics.
transport level interface — Transport Layer Interface
under the aegis of sb/sth — Something that is done under the aegis of a person or organization is done with their official support and backing.
uniform resource citation — (web) (URC) A set of attribute/value pairs describing an object. Some of the values may be URIs of various kinds. Others may include, for example, athorship, publisher, datatype, date, copyright status and shoe size. A URC is not normally considered as a string, but a set of fields and values with some defined free formatting.
university of east london — (body, education) (UEL) A UK University with six academic Faculties: Design and The Built Environment, East London Business School, Institute Of Health and Rehabilitation, Faculty Of Science, Social Sciences and Technology.
world council of churches — an ecumenical organization formed in 1948 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, comprising more than 160 Protestant and Eastern churches in over 48 countries, for the purpose of cooperative, coordinated action in theological, ecclesiastical, and secular matters.
world's oldest profession — prostitution.

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