24-letter words containing f, e, n, t, o
- effective sound pressure — the square root of the mean of the squares of the sound pressures of a sound wave, measured at a given point over a certain time interval.
- effort adjustment factor — (programming) (EAF) A term used in COCOMO to calculate a cost driver attribute's effect on a project. It is the product of the effort multipliers corresponding to each of the cost drivers for the project.
- electronic configuration — the arrangement of electrons in the orbitals of an atom or molecule
- electronic point of sale — a computerized system for recording sales in retail shops, using a laser scanner at the cash till to read bar codes on the packages of the items sold
- environmentally friendly — that has no or the least possible impact on the environment
- equine infectious anemia — swamp fever (def 2).
- family income supplement — a benefit formerly paid to low-income families
- fcc propylene production — FCC propylene production is the production of propylene from a catalytic cracker.
- federal trade commission — FTC.
- fight or flight reaction — the response of the sympathetic nervous system to a stressful event, preparing the body to fight or flee, associated with the adrenal secretion of epinephrine and characterized by increased heart rate, increased blood flow to the brain and muscles, raised sugar levels, sweaty palms and soles, dilated pupils, and erect hairs.
- fight-or-flight reaction — the response of the sympathetic nervous system to a stressful event, preparing the body to fight or flee, associated with the adrenal secretion of epinephrine and characterized by increased heart rate, increased blood flow to the brain and muscles, raised sugar levels, sweaty palms and soles, dilated pupils, and erect hairs.
- fight-or-flight response — the response of the sympathetic nervous system to a stressful event, preparing the body to fight or flee, associated with the adrenal secretion of epinephrine and characterized by increased heart rate, increased blood flow to the brain and muscles, raised sugar levels, sweaty palms and soles, dilated pupils, and erect hairs.
- finger-pointing syndrome — (programming) All-too-frequent result of bugs, especially in new or experimental configurations. The hardware vendor points a finger at the software. The software vendor points a finger at the hardware. All the poor users get is the finger.
- fish protein concentrate — an odorless and tasteless high-protein food additive made from ground fish and suitable for human consumption. Abbreviation: FPC.
- floating decimal (point) — a decimal (point) whose position is not fixed
- floating point underflow — underflow
- floating-point specratio — SPECfp92
- flue gas desulfurization — Flue gas desulfurization is the removal of pollutants containing sulfur from flue gas.
- fluoxetine hydrochloride — a white crystalline compound, C 17 H 18 F 3 NO⋅HCl: inhibits the uptake of serotonin and is used chiefly as an antidepressant.
- footloose and fancy-free — If you describe someone as footloose and fancy-free, you mean that they are not married or in a similar relationship, and you therefore consider them to have very few responsibilities or commitments.
- forward error correction — (algorithm) (FEC) A class of methods for controling errors in a one-way communication system. FEC sends extra information along with the data, which can be used by the receiver to check and correct the data. A CPU writing data to RAM is a kind of one-way communication - see error correcting memory and error checking and correction.
- fray at/around the edges — If you say that something is fraying at the edges or is fraying around the edges, you mean that it has an uncertain or unsteady quality, for example because it is gradually being spoiled or destroyed.
- free and accepted masons — a member of a widely distributed secret order (Free and Accepted Masons) having for its object mutual assistance and the promotion of brotherly love among its members.
- free software foundation — (body) (FSF) An organisation devoted to the creation and dissemination of free software, i.e. software that is free from licensing fees or restrictions on use. The Foundation's main work is supporting the GNU project, started by Richard Stallman (RMS), partly to proselytise for his position that information is community property and all software source should be shared. The GNU project has developed the GNU Emacs editor and a C compiler, gcc, replacements for many Unix utilities and many other tools. A complete Unix-like operating system (HURD) is in the works (April 1994). Software is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, which also provides a good summary of the Foundation's goals and principles. The Free Software Foundation raises most of its funds from distributing its software, although it is a charity rather than a company. Although the software is freely available (e.g. by FTP - see below) users are encouraged to support the work of the FSF by paying for their distribution service or by making donations. One of the slogans of the FSF is "Help stamp out software hoarding!" This remains controversial because authors want to own, assign and sell the results of their labour. However, many hackers who disagree with RMS have nevertheless cooperated to produce large amounts of high-quality software for free redistribution under the Free Software Foundation's imprimatur. See copyleft, General Public Virus, GNU archive site. Unofficial WWW pages: PDX, DeLorie. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Address: Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Telephone: +1 (617) 876 3296.
- french equatorial africa — a former federation of French territories in central Africa, including Chad, Gabon, Middle Congo (now People's Republic of the Congo), and Ubangi-Shari (now Central African Republic): each became independent in 1960.
- frequent shopper program — A frequent shopper program is one that rewards customers for purchases made on multiple visits, and builds up points entitling them to reduced prices and free items.
- frequent-flyer programme — a plan or system under which frequent flyers earn rewards for being regular customers
- functional specification — (programming, project) A description of what a system (e.g. a piece of software) does or should do (but not how it should do it). The functional specification is one of the inputs to the design process. See IEEE/ANSI Std. 610.12-1990.
- general of the air force — the highest ranking officer in the U.S. Air Force.
- general protection fault — General Protection Failure
- get on the wrong side of — to come into disfavour with
- give hostages to fortune — to place oneself in a position in which misfortune may strike through the loss of what one values most
- go/fly out of the window — If you say that something such as a plan or a particular way of thinking or behaving has gone out of the window or has flown out of the window, you mean that it has disappeared completely.
- gottfried von strassburg — early 13th-century German poet; author of the incomplete epic Tristan and Isolde, the version of the legend that served as the basis of Wagner's opera
- grand unification theory — a possible future quantum field theory that would encompass both the electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics. Abbreviation: GUT.
- grandfather, father, son — (operating system) (GFS) A backup rotation scheme in which a "grandfather" backup is performed on the first Monday of each month, a "father" backup is performed on every other Monday and a "son" backup is performed on every other day of the week. Grandfather tapes are kept for a year, father tapes for a month and son tapes for a week. The exact schedule (and thus the number of tapes required) may vary, as may the choice of full backup or incremental backup, but the idea is that it should be possible to restore versions of any file of different ages: e.g. yesterday's, last week's or last year's version.
- gregorio lopez y fuentes — Gregorio [gre-gaw-ryaw] /grɛˈgɔ ryɔ/ (Show IPA), 1895–1966, Mexican writer.
- ground-fault interrupter — a circuit breaker that senses currents caused by ground faults and quickly shuts off power before damage can occur to generating equipment.
- gulf cooperation council — an association of Persian Gulf nations formed for the purpose of collective defense against aggression. Abbreviation: GCC.
- have at one's fingertips — to have available for instant use
- high performance fortran — (language) (HPF) A data parallel language extension to Fortran 90 which provides a portable programming interface for a wide variety of target platforms. The original HPF language specification was produced by the High Performance Fortran Forum, a broad consortium of industry and academia, which met regularly throughout 1992 and early 1993. HPF compilers are now available on most commonly-used computing systems, and users are beginning to gain first hand experience with this language. The Forum has continued to meet in order to address advanced topics.
- high performance routing — (networking) (HPR) Routing designed to work in conjunction with APPN Intermediate Session Routing (ISR) network nodes. HPR nodes perform many of the same functions as ISR nodes. For example, HPR nodes use the same method of calculating routes based on the Topology Routing Service database and class of service tables. HPR nodes also supports such APPN features as connection networks and support for parallel transmission groups (TGs). In the HPR architecture, both partner nodes must support HPR for RTP connections to take place between the nodes. If one node supports HPR and the partner node does not, then the link will support ISR functionality only.
- high-fructose corn syrup — corn syrup to which enzymes have been added to change some of the glucose to fructose, making the product sweeter than regular corn syrup. Abbreviation: HFCS.
- house of representatives — the lower legislative branch in many national and state bicameral governing bodies, as in the United States, Mexico, and Japan.
- human-computer interface — (software, hardware) (HCI) Any software or hardware that allows a user to interact with a computer. Examples are WIMP, command-line interpreter, or virtual reality. See also Human-Computer Interaction.
- implicit differentiation — a method of finding the derivative of an implicit function by taking the derivative of each term with respect to the independent variable while keeping the derivative of the dependent variable with respect to the independent variable in symbolic form and then solving for that derivative.
- in one's heart of hearts — Anatomy. a hollow, pumplike organ of blood circulation, composed mainly of rhythmically contractile smooth muscle, located in the chest between the lungs and slightly to the left and consisting of four chambers: a right atrium that receives blood returning from the body via the superior and inferior vena cavae, a right ventricle that pumps the blood through the pulmonary artery to the lungs for oxygenation, a left atrium that receives the oxygenated blood via the pulmonary veins and passes it through the mitral valve, and a left ventricle that pumps the oxygenated blood, via the aorta, throughout the body.
- in the middle of nowhere — If you say that a place is in the middle of nowhere, you mean that it is a long way from other places.
- in the teeth of the wind — directly into the wind
- independent logical file — (database) (ILF) One kind of dynamic database management system. Examples of ILF databases are INQUIRE, ADABAS, NOMAD, FOCUS and DATACOM.