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15-letter words containing f, e, s, t

  • feel one's oats — a cereal grass, Avena sativa, cultivated for its edible seed.
  • fencepost error — 1. (Rarely "lamp-post error") A problem with the discrete equivalent of a boundary condition, often exhibited in programs by iterative loops. From the following problem: "If you build a fence 100 feet long with posts 10 feet apart, how many posts do you need?" (Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10). For example, suppose you have a long list or array of items, and want to process items m through n; how many items are there? The obvious answer is n - m, but that is off by one; the right answer is n - m + 1. The "obvious" formula exhibits a fencepost error. See also zeroth and note that not all off-by-one errors are fencepost errors. The game of Musical Chairs involves a catastrophic off-by-one error where N people try to sit in N - 1 chairs, but it's not a fencepost error. Fencepost errors come from counting things rather than the spaces between them, or vice versa, or by neglecting to consider whether one should count one or both ends of a row. 2. (Rare) An error induced by unexpected regularities in input values, which can (for instance) completely thwart a theoretically efficient binary tree or hash coding implementation. The error here involves the difference between expected and worst case behaviours of an algorithm.
  • ferroelasticity — (physics) A phenomenon, analogous to ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity, in which spontaneous strain arises within a material.
  • ferrous sulfate — a bluish-green, crystalline, saline-tasting, water-soluble heptahydrated solid, FeSO 4 ⋅7H 2 O, used chiefly in the manufacture of other iron salts, in water purification, fertilizer, inks, pigments, tanning, photography, and in medicine in the treatment of anemia.
  • fetal diagnosis — prenatal determination of genetic or chemical abnormalities in a fetus, esp by amniocentesis
  • fetishistically — in a fetishistic manner
  • fibrocartilages — Plural form of fibrocartilage.
  • field intensity — the vector sum of all forces exerted by a field on a unit mass, unit charge, unit magnetic pole, etc., at a given point within the field.
  • fiesta de toros — a bullfight; corrida.
  • fifth dimension — a theoretical dimension beyond or in addition to a fourth dimension.
  • file descriptor — (programming, operating system)   An integer that identifies an open file within a process. This number is obtained as a result of opening a file. Operations which read, write, or close a file would take the file descriptor as an input parameter. In many operating system implementations, file descriptors are small integers which index a table of open files. In Unix, file descriptors 0, 1 and 2 correspond to the standard input, standard output and standard error files respectively. See file descriptor leak.
  • fillister plane — an adjustable plane for cutting rabbets, grooves, etc
  • find one's feet — to become capable or confident, as in a new job
  • fire resistance — the amount of resistance of a material or construction to fire.
  • first amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, prohibiting Congress from interfering with freedom of religion, speech, assembly, or petition.
  • first gentleman — (often initial capital letters) the husband of the U.S. president or a current governor or mayor.
  • first intention — See under intention (def 5a).
  • first messenger — a hormone that triggers a biochemical reaction at a site removed from its release.
  • first principle — any axiom, law, or abstraction assumed and regarded as representing the highest possible degree of generalization.
  • first responder — a person who is certified to provide medical care in emergencies before more highly trained medical personnel arrive on the scene: a firefighter trained as a first responder.
  • first secretary — The First Secretary of the Welsh Assembly is the leader of the ruling party.
  • first-day cover — a cover marked so as to indicate that it was mailed on the first day of issue of the stamp it bears and from one of the cities at which the stamp was issued on that day.
  • first-intention — an act or instance of determining mentally upon some action or result.
  • fish restaurant — a restaurant which serves mainly fish
  • fission reactor — a nuclear reactor in which a fission reaction takes place
  • fit as a fiddle — a musical instrument of the viol family.
  • fitness fanatic — someone who is obsessed with exercise and keeping himself or herself fit
  • fitness tracker — a wearable electronic device or a software application that monitors one's physical fitness and daily physical activity.
  • fitness trainer — someone whose job is to improve other people's fitness
  • five-star hotel — a top-quality hotel offering exceptional luxury
  • fixed satellite — a satellite in a geostationary orbit
  • fixed-do system — a system of solmization in which the syllable do is always C, regardless of the key.
  • flatbed scanner — a type of optical scanner having a flat, stationary surface on which a page is scanned by a moving head.
  • flatter oneself — to hold the self-satisfying or self-deluding belief (that)
  • fleet insurance — Fleet insurance is a type of insurance contract that applies to a number of vehicles.
  • flemish brabant — a province of central Belgium, formed in 1995 from the N part of Brabant province: densely populated and intensively farmed, with large industrial centres. Pop: 1 031 904 (2004 est). Area: 2106 sq km (813 sq miles)
  • flight of ideas — a rapid flow of thought, manifested by accelerated speech with abrupt changes from topic to topic: a symptom of some mental illnesses, especially manic disorder.
  • flight sergeant — a noncommissioned officer in the Royal Air Force junior in rank to a master aircrew
  • flirtatiousness — The quality of being flirtatious.
  • floating screed — Building Trades. screed (def 3).
  • floods of tears — If you say that someone was in floods of tears or in a flood of tears, you are emphasizing that they were crying with great intensity because they were very upset.
  • floral tributes — bunches or arrangements of flowers left as a memorial at the site of a fatal incident
  • fluorophosphate — a salt or ester of a fluorophosphoric acid.
  • flying buttress — a segmental arch transmitting an outward and downward thrust to a solid buttress that through its inertia transforms the thrust into a vertical one.
  • flying fortress — a heavy bomber, the B-17, with four radial piston engines, widely used over Europe and the Mediterranean by the U.S. Air Force in World War II.
  • fob destination — FOB destination is a shipping term indicating that ownership of goods passes at delivery to their destination, and the seller has total responsibility until then.
  • food insecurity — an economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.
  • food supplement — a substance designed to make up for a deficiency in one's diet
  • football season — annual period when soccer is played
  • for pity's sake — You can say for pity's sake to add emphasis to what you are saying, especially when you are annoyed or upset.
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