16-letter words containing f, e, n, c, d
- dolce far niente — pleasing inactivity.
- dorothy canfield — Dorothy, Fisher, Dorothy Canfield.
- drag coefficient — a measure of the drag of an object in a moving fluid, esp air
- 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.
- feedback control — (electronics) A control system which monitors its effect on the system it is controlling and modifies its output accordingly. For example, a thermostat has two inputs: the desired temperature and the current temperature (the latter is the feedback). The output of the thermostat changes so as to try to equalise the two inputs. Computer disk drives use feedback control to position the read/write heads accurately on a recording track. Complex systems such as the human body contain many feedback systems that interact with each other; the homeostasis mechanisms that control body temperature and acidity are good examples.
- feel constrained — If you feel constrained to do something, you feel that you must do it, even though you would prefer not to.
- ferdinand marcos — Ferdinand E(dralin) [ed-ruh-lin] /ˈɛd rə lɪn/ (Show IPA), 1917–1989, Philippine political leader: president 1965–86.
- ferricyanic acid — a brown, crystalline, unstable, water-soluble solid, H 3 Fe(CN) 6 , obtained by the interaction of a ferricyanide and an acid.
- ferrocyanic acid — a white, crystalline, unstable, water-soluble solid, H 4 Fe(CN) 6 , obtained by the interaction of a ferrocyanide and an acid.
- ferruginous duck — a common European duck, Aythyra nyroca, having reddish-brown plumage with white wing bars
- field dependence — a psychological trait associated with having an external locus of orientation (contrasted with field independence).
- finance director — financial manager
- find one's voice — If someone finds their voice, they start to speak in spite of fear or surprise or difficult circumstances.
- finished product — the product that emerges at the end of a manufacturing process
- fixed-price menu — In a restaurant, the cost of a meal on a fixed-price menu stays the same and does not vary.
- flat-bed scanner — a type of optical scanner having a flat, stationary surface on which a page is scanned by a moving head.
- floridean starch — the storage polysaccharide of red algae.
- food intolerance — an intolerance of a specific type of food, causing an adverse reaction
- force one's hand — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
- forced vibration — Forced vibration is a type of vibration in which a force is repeatedly applied to a mechanical system.
- forward exchange — a foreign bill purchased at a stipulated price and payable at a future date.
- francis townsend — Francis Everett, 1867–1960, U.S. physician and proposer of the Townsend plan.
- french directory — the body of five directors in power in France from 1795 until their overthrow by Napoleon in 1799
- french indochina — an area in SE Asia, formerly a French colonial federation including Cochin-China, the protectorates of Annam, Cambodia, Tonkin, and Laos, and the leased territory of Kwangchowan: now comprising the three independent states of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Capital: Hanoi.
- friction welding — a method of welding thermoplastics or metals by the heat generated by rubbing the members to be joined against each other under pressure.
- friedrich engels — Friedrich [free-drikh] /ˈfri drɪx/ (Show IPA), 1820–95, German socialist in England: collaborated with Karl Marx in systematizing Marxism.
- friendly society — law: mutual group providing benefits
- front and center — If a topic or question is front and center, a lot of attention is being paid to it or a lot of people are talking about it.
- fundamentalistic — Fundamentalist.
- funeral director — a person, usually a licensed embalmer, who supervises or conducts the preparation of the dead for burial and directs or arranges funerals.
- golden handcuffs — payments deferred over a number of years that induce a person to stay with a particular company or in a particular job
- grace-and-favour — (of a house, flat, etc) owned by the sovereign and granted free of rent to a person to whom the sovereign wishes to express gratitude
- hay-scented fern — a fern, Dennstaedtia punctilobula, of eastern North America, having brittle, yellow-green fronds.
- huffman encoding — Huffman coding
- hydroferricyanic — (chemistry) Pertaining to, or containing, or obtained from, hydrogen, ferric iron, and cyanogen.
- immunodeficiency — impairment of the immune response, predisposing to infection and certain malignancies.
- infant education — (in England and Wales) education provided for children at infant schools
- infinite decimal — nonterminating decimal.
- infinite product — a sequence of numbers in which an infinite number of terms are multiplied together.
- informed consent — a patient's consent to a medical or surgical procedure or to participation in a clinical study after being properly advised of the relevant medical facts and the risks involved.
- manufactured gas — a gaseous fuel created from coal, oil, etc., as differentiated from natural gas.
- medium frequency — any frequency between 300 and 3000 kilohertz. Abbreviation: MF.
- mental defective — a person who suffers from a learning disability or from some form of mental illness
- mexican standoff — a stalemate or impasse; a confrontation that neither side can win.
- monkey-faced owl — barn owl.
- no-fault divorce — a divorce granted without anyone being found guilty of marital misconduct
- non-confidential — spoken, written, acted on, etc., in strict privacy or secrecy; secret: a confidential remark.
- non-manufactured — the making of goods or wares by manual labor or by machinery, especially on a large scale: the manufacture of television sets.
- old north french — the dialect of Old French spoken in northern France. Abbreviation: ONF.