18-letter words containing f, e, n, a
- bore the pants off — to bore extremely
- bounty-fed farmers — farmers who benefit from subsidies
- breach of contract — the act of breaking the conditions of a contract
- california current — a cold current originating in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, flowing SE along the coast of W North America.
- california rosebay — a Pacific coast shrub or tree (Rhododendron californicum) of the heath family, with rosy or purplish flowers
- campaign furniture — furniture, as chests or desks, having metal hinges on the corners and handles on the sides.
- cap of maintenance — a ceremonial cap or hat worn or carried as a symbol of office, rank, etc
- cash-for-questions — of, involved in, or relating to a scandal in which some MPs were accused of accepting bribes to ask particular questions in Parliament
- catherine of siena — Saint. 1347–80, Italian mystic and ascetic; patron saint of the Dominican order. Feast day: April 29
- cauliflower fungus — a large edible white to yellowish cauliflowerlike mushroom, Sparassis radicata, widely distributed in North America.
- centrifugal clutch — an automatic clutch in which the friction surfaces are engaged by weighted levers acting under centrifugal force at a certain speed of rotation
- certification mark — a mark that certifies the origin, material, quality, mode of manufacture, accuracy, or other characteristic of a product or service: “UL” is a certification mark for appliances meeting the safety standards of Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.
- check verification — Check verification is a system that checks national databases of information about individuals to make sure that checks will be honored and fraud is not being committed.
- children of israel — the Jews; Hebrews
- christian reformed — of or relating to a Protestant denomination (Christian Reformed Church) organized in the U.S. in 1857 by groups that had seceded from the Dutch Reformed Church.
- classified section — the part of a publication that contains classified advertising
- combustion furnace — a furnace used in the laboratory to carry out elemental analysis of organic compounds
- commander in chief — Also, Commander in Chief. the supreme commander of the armed forces of a nation or, sometimes, of several allied nations: The president is the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force.
- commander-in-chief — A commander-in-chief is a senior officer who is in charge of all the forces in a particular area.
- commanding officer — A commanding officer is an officer who is in charge of a military unit.
- compassion fatigue — the inability to react sympathetically to a crisis, disaster, etc, because of overexposure to previous crises, disasters, etc
- compliance officer — a specialist, usually a lawyer, employed by a financial group operating in a variety of fields and for multiple clients to ensure that no conflict of interest arises and that all obligations and regulations are complied with
- configuration item — (jargon) Hardware or software, or an aggregate of both, which is designated by the project configuration manager (or contracting agency) for configuration management.
- congress of vienna — the European conference held at Vienna from 1814–15 to settle the territorial problems left by the Napoleonic Wars
- considered harmful — (programming, humour) A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
- continued fraction — a number plus a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction, and so on
- contract furniture — furniture designed and manufactured for commercial installation, as in offices, waiting rooms, or lobbies.
- cooking facilities — equipment necessary for cooking
- counterreformation — a reform movement to oppose a previous one
- creeping featurism — (jargon) /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
- crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
- dangerous offender — an offender who is deemed by a court of law to be likely to engage in further violent conduct, and who thus becomes eligible for an indefinite prison sentence
- data transfer rate — (communications) (Or "throughput, data rate", "transmission rate") The amount of data transferred in one direction over a link divided by the time taken to transfer it, usually expressed in bits per second (bps), bytes per second (Bps) or baud. The link may be anything from an interface to a hard disk to a radio transmission from a satellite. Where data transfer is not continuous throughout the given time interval, the data transfer rate is thus an average rate that will be lower than the peak rate. The peak or maximum possible rate may itself be lower than the capacity of the communication channel if the channel is shared, or part of the signal is not considered as data, e.g. checksum or routing information. When applied to data rate, the multiplier prefixes "kilo-", "mega-", "giga-", etc. (and their abbreviations, "k", "M", "G", etc.) always denote powers of 1000. For example, 64 kbps is 64,000 bits per second. This contrasts with units of storage where they stand for powers of 1024, e.g. 1 KB = 1024 bytes. The other important characteristic of a channel is its latency. The bandwidth of a channel determines the data transfer rate but is a different characteristic, measured in Hertz. [Relationship?]
- de-differentiation — a process by which structures or behaviors that were specialized for a specific function lose their specialization and become simplified or generalized.
- de-objectification — to present as an object, especially of sight, touch, or other physical sense; make objective; externalize.
- dead man's fingers — a soft coral, Alcyonium digitatum, with long finger-like polyps
- dead-man's fingers — any of various fungi, sponges, plant roots, animal parts, etc., having fingerlike projections and a pale or dull color, as the gray-black woodland fungus Xylaria polymorpha or the whitish spongy gills of a food crab.
- declaration of war — a formal statement made by one country to another that a state of war now exists between them
- deep-sea fisherman — a person who takes part in deep-sea fishing
- defense calculator — IBM 701
- deficiency account — an account summarizing the financial condition of an individual or company in danger of bankruptcy.
- deficiency disease — any condition, such as pellagra, beriberi, or scurvy, produced by a lack of vitamins or other essential substances
- deficiency payment — a payment made to a commodity producer that represents the difference between the market price and the guaranteed price
- definitive plumage — the plumage of a bird that, once attained, does not change significantly in color or pattern for the rest of the bird's life.
- diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
- disenfranchisement — to disfranchise.
- disidentifications — Plural form of disidentification.
- dna fingerprinting — the use of a DNA probe for the identification of an individual, as for the matching of genes from a forensic sample with those of a criminal suspect.
- dwarf storage unit — (humour) (DSU) An IBM term for a cupboard.
- dysfunctionalities — Plural form of dysfunctionality.