17-letter words containing f, e, m, t, o, s
- overhead camshaft — a camshaft in an automotive engine that is located in the cylinder head over the engine block rather than in the block. Abbreviation: OHC.
- phase of the moon — Used humorously as a random parameter on which something is said to depend. Sometimes implies unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to determine. "This feature depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon." See also heisenbug. True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend on the phase of the moon. There was a little subroutine that had traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an approximation to the moon's true phase. GLS incorporated this routine into a Lisp program that, when it wrote out a file, would print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long. Very occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read back in the program would barf. The length of the first line depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug literally depended on the phase of the moon! The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but the typesetter "corrected" it. This has since been described as the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.
- phlebotomus fever — sandfly fever.
- potassium sulfate — a crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 2 SO 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers, alums, and mineral water, and as a reagent in analytical chemistry.
- pre-manifestation — an act of manifesting.
- pre-modifications — an act or instance of modifying.
- saint elmo's fire — corona discharge.
- scientific method — a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.
- self-commendation — the act of commending; recommendation; praise: commendation for a job well done.
- self-condemnation — the act of condemning.
- self-confirmation — the act of confirming.
- self-emancipation — the act of emancipating.
- self-incompatible — not capable of self-pollination.
- software platform — a major piece of software, as an operating system, an operating environment, or a database, under which various smaller application programs can be designed to run.
- sound effects man — a man who produces sounds artificially or reproduces them from a recording, etc, to create a theatrical effect, such as the bringing together of two halves of a hollow coconut shell to simulate a horse's gallop. Such sound effects are used in plays, films, etc
- south farmingdale — a town on central Long Island, in SE New York.
- star of bethlehem — the star that is supposed to have appeared above Bethlehem at the birth of Christ
- star-of-bethlehem — any of several plants belonging to the genus Ornithogalum, of the lily family, having grasslike leaves and clusters of white flowers.
- star-of-jerusalem — meadow salsify.
- temple of artemis — the temple at Ephesus dedicated to Artemis.
- the sound of mull — the water that separates the island of Mull from the mainland of Scotland
- theory of numbers — number theory.
- thermal diffusion — the separation of constituents, often isotopes, of a fluid under the influence of a temperature gradient.
- think in terms of — If you say that you are thinking in terms of doing a particular thing, you mean that you are considering it.
- to fan the flames — If someone or something fans the flames of a situation or feeling, usually a bad one, they make it more intense or extreme in some way.
- uncomfortableness — causing discomfort or distress; painful; irritating.