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17-letter words containing f, e, r, o

  • computer confetti — (jargon)   (Or "chad") A common term for punched-card chad, which, however, does not make good confetti, as the pieces are stiff and have sharp corners that could injure the eyes.
  • conference centre — a large venue designed for conferences often consisting of a large hall as well as a number of smaller lecture rooms and other facilities
  • conscript fathers — august legislators, esp Roman senators
  • contempt of court — Contempt of court is the criminal offence of disobeying an instruction from a judge or a court of law.
  • continental drift — Continental drift is the slow movement of the Earth's continents towards and away from each other.
  • contraflow system — a system of traffic lanes whose normal direction is reversed to allow traffic to move during repairs or an accident
  • copious free time — (jargon)   (Apple; originally from the introduction to Tom Lehrer's song "It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier") Used ironically to indicate the speaker's lack of the quantity in question; a mythical schedule slot for accomplishing tasks held to be unlikely or impossible. Sometimes used to indicate that the speaker is interested in accomplishing the task, but believes that the opportunity will not arise. "I'll implement the automatic layout stuff in my copious free time." The phrase is also used for time reserved for bogus or otherwise idiotic tasks, such as implementation of bad chrome, or the stroking of suits. "I'll get back to him on that feature in my copious free time."
  • corporal of horse — a noncommissioned rank in the British Household Cavalry above that of sergeant and below that of staff sergeant
  • council of europe — an association of European states, established in 1949 to promote unity between its members, defend human rights, and increase social and economic progress
  • counter-influence — the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others: He used family influence to get the contract.
  • counteroffensives — Plural form of counteroffensive.
  • court of chancery — (in the US) a court of equity
  • court of sessions — any of state courts of criminal jurisdiction in California, New York, and a few other states.
  • court-of-chancery — chancery (def 4a).
  • cream of the crop — the best of a group
  • creature comforts — Creature comforts are the things that you need to feel comfortable in a place, for example good food and modern equipment.
  • creature of habit — If you say that someone is a creature of habit, you mean that they usually do the same thing at the same time each day, rather than doing new and different things.
  • cross of lorraine — a cross with two horizontal bars above and below the midpoint of the vertical bar, the lower longer than the upper
  • culture diffusion — the spreading out of culture, culture traits, or a cultural pattern from a central point.
  • cut a good figure — to appear or behave well
  • cut a poor figure — to appear or behave badly
  • damp-proof course — A damp-proof course is the same as a damp course.
  • david copperfield — a novel (1850) by Charles Dickens.
  • de facto standard — A widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol which has not been ratified by any official standards body, such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market share. The archetypal example of a de facto standard is the IBM PC which, despite is many glaring technical deficiencies, has gained such a large share of the personal computer market that it is now popular simply because it is popular and therefore enjoys fierce competition in pricing and software development.
  • dedifferentiation — the reversion of the cells of differentiated tissue to a less specialized form
  • deep-frozen foods — foodstuffs that have been frozen for storage
  • defamiliarisation — (arts) The representation of objects anew, in a way that we do not recognize, or that changes our reading of them.
  • defamiliarization — Art, Literature. a theory and technique, originating in the early 20th century, in which an artistic or literary work presents familiar objects or situations in an unfamiliar way, prolonging the perceptive process and allowing for a fresh perspective.
  • degree of freedom — one of the minimum number of parameters necessary to describe a state or property of a system
  • denial of service — a deliberate interruption in access to a computer system or network, esp by using multiple computers to generate an unmanageable volume of traffic (distributed denial of service)
  • denial-of-service — pertaining to or being an incident in which a computer or computer network is disabled, disrupting access or service: a website hit by a denial-of-service attack; unintentional denial-of-service problems.
  • deprofessionalise — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
  • deprofessionalize — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
  • differential tone — a musical sound sometimes heard when two loud notes are sounded together, lower in pitch than either
  • dimethylformamide — a colourless liquid widely used as a solvent and sometimes as a catalyst. Formula: (CH3)2NCHO
  • director of music — a person in charge of musical training and performance at an institution such as a college, especially the head bandmaster of a military band
  • distributed force — A distributed force is a force that acts on a large part of a surface, not just on one place.
  • double quatrefoil — a charge having the form of a foil with eight leaves, used especially as the cadency mark of a ninth son.
  • double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.
  • drained of colour — colourless
  • dress-down friday — In some companies employees are allowed to wear clothes that are less smart than usual on a Friday. This day is known as a dress-down Friday.
  • drool-proof paper — (jargon)   Documentation that has been obsessively dumbed down, to the point where only a cretin could bear to read it, is said to have succumbed to the "drool-proof paper syndrome" or to have been "written on drool-proof paper". For example, this is an actual quote from Apple Computer's LaserWriter manual: "Do not expose your LaserWriter to open fire or flame."
  • drop on the floor — To react to an error condition by silently discarding messages or other valuable data. "The gateway ran out of memory, so it just started dropping packets on the floor." Also frequently used of faulty mail and netnews relay sites that lose messages. See also black hole, bit bucket.
  • droplet infection — infection spread by airborne droplets of secretions from the nose, throat, or lungs.
  • due course of law — the regular administration of the law, according to which no citizen may be denied his or her legal rights and all laws must conform to fundamental, accepted legal principles, as the right of the accused to confront his or her accusers.
  • electrofiltration — Electrofiltration is a separation process in which an electric field is applied across a filter to improve separation.
  • electron affinity — a measure of the ability of an atom or molecule to form a negative ion, expressed as the energy released when an electron is attached
  • electronic office — integrated computer systems designed to handle office work
  • empirical formula — a chemical formula indicating the proportion of each element present in a molecule
  • ends of the earth — remote regions
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