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18-letter words containing f, e, r, n, t

  • 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.
  • crocodile-infested — full of crocodiles
  • crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
  • current efficiency — the ratio of the actual mass of a substance liberated from an electrolyte by the passage of current to the theoretical mass liberated according to Faraday's law
  • 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.
  • declaration of war — a formal statement made by one country to another that a state of war now exists between them
  • defense calculator — IBM 701
  • disenfranchisement — to disfranchise.
  • distress frequency — a radio frequency band reserved for emergency signals from aircraft or ships in distress.
  • 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.
  • duty-free shopping — the making of duty-free purchases
  • dwarf storage unit — (humour)   (DSU) An IBM term for a cupboard.
  • efficient frontier — The efficient frontier is a method of analyzing a portfolio to discover the combination of assets that will produce the most return for risk.
  • eleanor of castile — 1246–90, Spanish wife of Edward I of England. Eleanor Crosses were erected at each place at which her body rested between Nottingham, where she died, and London, where she is buried
  • electronic warfare — the military use of electronics to prevent or reduce an enemy's effective use and to protect friendly use of electromagnetic radiation equipment
  • enforcement action — action by a body or organization, esp a financial one, to make sure that its rules are being followed
  • expected frequency — the number of occasions on which an event may be presumed to occur on average in a given number of trials
  • fabric conditioner — a product used when washing clothes to make them feel softer
  • fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
  • false imprisonment — the unlawful restraint of a person from exercising the right to freedom of movement.
  • far eastern region — former name of Khabarovsk.
  • farewell-to-spring — a slender, showy plant, Clarkia amoena, of the evening primrose family, native to western North America, having satiny, cup-shaped, lilac-crimson or reddish-pink flowers and roundish fruit.
  • farm the long acre — to graze cows on the verge of a road
  • farmer in the dell — a game, accompanied by a song with several verses, in which one person, designated as the farmer, occupies the center of a circle of persons and is joined in the circle by other players designated as wife, child, nurse, cat, rat, and cheese, these then leaving the circle in order except for the one designated as cheese, who is left standing alone in the circle at the end.
  • fatty degeneration — deterioration of the cells of the body, accompanied by the formation of fat globules within the diseased cells.
  • feather one's nest — one of the horny structures forming the principal covering of birds, consisting typically of a hard, tubular portion attached to the body and tapering into a thinner, stemlike portion bearing a series of slender, barbed processes that interlock to form a flat structure on each side.
  • federal funds rate — The federal funds rate is the overnight rate between banks.
  • federal government — pertaining to or of the nature of a union of states under a central government distinct from the individual governments of the separate states, as in federal government; federal system.
  • feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
  • feldenkrais method — a system of gentle movements that promote flexibility, coordination, and self-awareness
  • fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
  • fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
  • fifth monarchy men — (during the Commonwealth in the 17th century) a militant sect of Puritans who identified the fifth monarchy with the millennial reign of Christ and who believed they should help to inaugurate that reign by force.
  • file control block — (operating system)   (FCB) An MS-DOS data structure that stores information about an open file. The number of FCBs is configured in CONFIG.SYS with a command FCBS=x,y where x (between 1 and 255 inclusive, default 4) specifies the number of file control blocks to allocate and therefore the number of files that MS-DOS can have open at one time. y (not needed from DOS 5.0 onward) specifies the number of files to be closed automatically if all x are in use.
  • fire and brimstone — When people talk about fire and brimstone, they are referring to hell and how they think people are punished there after death.
  • fire-and-brimstone — threatening punishment in the hereafter: a fire-and-brimstone sermon.
  • first and foremost — primarily
  • first year infants — a class for young children who have just started school
  • fitness instructor — physical trainer, exercise teacher
  • fixed-term tenancy — a tenancy arrangement for a particular and fixed period
  • floating underflow — underflow
  • floating-rate note — a eurobond, often issued as a negotiable bearer bond, that has a floating rate of interest
  • flower arrangement — floral display
  • fluorescent screen — a transparent screen coated on one side with a phosphor that fluoresces when exposed to X-rays or cathode rays
  • for the time being — the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.
  • forced development — the processing of underexposed photographic film to increase the image density
  • fore-edge painting — a technique of painting a picture on the fore edge of a book, often in such a manner that only when the pages are slightly fanned the picture is revealed.
  • foreign investment — investment from foreign countries
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