18-letter words containing f, e, r
- bernard of menthon — Saint(11th cent.); Fr. monk who founded hospices in the Swiss Alps: his day is May 28
- best-ball foursome — a match, scored by holes, between two pairs of players, in which the score of the lower scoring member of each pair is taken as their score for the hole.
- bevel-faced hammer — a riveting hammer having an oblique face.
- biodiversification — the process by which the diversity of plants or animals develops or is increased within a particular region or group of organisms.
- biological warfare — the use of living organisms or their toxic products to induce death or incapacity in humans and animals and damage to plant crops, etc
- bird's-foot violet — a North American violet (Viola pedata) having divided leaves and large blue or purple flowers
- bird's-nest fungus — any fungus of the family Nidulariaceae, having a nestlike spore-producing body containing egglike spore-filled structures
- birds of a feather — If you refer to two people as birds of a feather, you mean that they have the same interests or are very similar.
- blackback flounder — any of various popular food flatfishes, as Parophrys vetulus of the Pacific (English sole) and Pseudopleuronectes americanus of the Atlantic (winter flounder or blackback flounder)
- blackwater rafting — the sport of riding through underground caves on a large rubber tube
- blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
- board of directors — A company's board of directors is the group of people elected by its shareholders to manage the company.
- board of education — a group or agency with responsibility for education
- board of elections — a bipartisan board appointed usually by local authorities and charged with control of elections and voting procedure.
- board of examiners — a group of people who officially administer examinations
- board of governors — a group of people who oversee the running of a school
- bolt from the blue — If a piece of news comes like a bolt from the blue, it is completely unexpected and very surprising.
- 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
- breach of security — an act that violates a country, area, or building's security measures
- brute force attack — (cryptography) A method of breaking a cipher (that is, to decrypt a specific encrypted text) by trying every possible key. The quicker the brute force attack, the weaker the cipher. Feasibility of brute force attack depends on the key length of the cipher, and on the amount of computational power available to the attacker. Brute force attack is impossible against the ciphers with variable-size key, such as a one-time pad cipher.
- burn one's fingers — to suffer from having meddled or been rash
- 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.
- 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 cheese — a dish of cauliflower with a cheese sauce, eaten hot
- cauliflower fungus — a large edible white to yellowish cauliflowerlike mushroom, Sparassis radicata, widely distributed in North America.
- center of symmetry — a point within a crystal through which any straight line extends to points on opposite surfaces of the crystal at equal distances.
- centre of pressure — the point in a body at which the resultant pressure acts when the body is immersed in a fluid
- 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
- cereal leaf beetle — an Old World leaf beetle, Oulema melanopus, introduced into North America in 1962: a serious pest of small grains, especially oats and cereal grasses.
- 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.
- chamber of horrors — a room, for example in a waxworks, containing objects, images or representations of people or scenes that are believed likely to frighten or horrify visitors
- charge of quarters — a member of the armed forces who handles administration in his or her unit, esp after duty hours
- 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
- chinese fire drill — a state of chaotic, often clamorous disorder.
- chord of the sixth — sixth chord.
- 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.
- colossus of rhodes — a giant bronze statue of Apollo built on Rhodes in about 292–280 bc; destroyed by an earthquake in 225 bc; one of the Seven Wonders of the World
- comb-footed spider — any of numerous spiders constituting the family Theridiidae, having a comblike row of bristles on the tarsi of the hind legs.
- 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.
- 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
- conditioned reflex — a reflex in which the response (e.g., secretion of saliva in a dog) is occasioned by a secondary stimulus (e.g., the ringing of a bell) repeatedly associated with the primary stimulus (e.g., the sight of meat)