18-letter words containing f, e, s
- out of one's skull — foolish; silly
- overdraft interest — interest charged on money withdrawn in excess of the credit balance of a bank or building society account
- pair of spectacles — a score of 0 in each innings of a match
- par for the course — an equality in value or standing; a level of equality: The gains and the losses are on a par.
- patron of the arts — someone who acts as a patron to or supports charities, organizations, and individuals that work in or concern the arts
- pedestrian traffic — the people coming and going on foot in a street, town, etc
- pellitory of spain — a small Mediterranean plant, Anacyclus pyrethrum, the root of which contains an oil formerly used to relieve toothache: family Asteraceae (composites)
- percussion flaking — a method of forming a flint tool by striking flakes from a stone core with another stone or a piece of bone or wood.
- perfect continuous — perfect progressive.
- performance artist — an artist that is involved in a theatrical presentation that incorporates various art forms, such as dance, sculpture, music, etc
- phase-shift keying — (communications) (PSK) A digital modulation scheme that conveys data by changing the phase of a carrier wave. The data can either determine the absolute phase relative to the unmodulated carrier or reference signal ("coherent phase-shift keying", CPSK) or the change in phase ("differential phase-shift keying", DPSK). The number of different phases used determines the amount of data that can be transmitted in each cycle. Each cycle can be considered to constitute one "symbol", e.g. with two possible phases, each cycle carries one bit. The more phases that are used, the less tollerant to noise the transmissions becomes. Alternatives to PSK are amplitude-shift keying (ASK) and frequency-shift keying (FSK).
- philosophy of life — any philosophical view or vision of the nature or purpose of life or of the way that life should be lived.
- piecewise function — a function whose definition changes depending on the value of the independent variable
- pilotless aircraft — an aircraft equipped for operation by radio or by robot control, without a human pilot aboard; drone.
- play second fiddle — be considered less important
- play someone false — to deceive, cheat, hoodwink, or betray someone
- population figures — population totals; statistics relating to the size of populations
- potassium fluoride — a white, crystalline, hygroscopic, toxic powder, KF, used chiefly as an insecticide, a disinfectant, and in etching glass.
- power-on self-test — (hardware, testing) (POST) A sequence of diagnostic tests that are run automatically by a device when the power is turned on. In a personal computer a typical POST sequence does the following: - checks that the system board is working - checks that the memory is working - compares the current system configuration with that recorded by the PC's configuration program to see if anything has been added or removed or broken - starts the video operation - checks that the diskette drive, hard disk drive, CD-ROM drive, and any other drives that may be installed are working. When POST is finished, typically it will beep, and then let your operating system start to boot. If POST finds an error, it may beep more than once (or possibly not at all if it is your PC speaker that is broken) and display a POST error message. These messages are often nothing more than a single ominous number. Some common numbers and their meanings are: 161 Dead battery (get a new battery for the system board) 162 Configuration changed (you added some memory or a new card to the PC) 301 Keyboard error (take the book off the corner of the keyboard) Because a successful POST indicates that the system is restored to known state, turning the power off and on is a standard way to reset a system whose software has hung. Compare 120 reset, Big Red Switch, power cycle.
- prayer of manasses — a book of the Apocrypha.
- pre-filled syringe — A pre-filled syringe is a disposable syringe that is supplied already loaded with the substance to be injected.
- prefect of studies — a senior master in a Jesuit school or college
- preferred position — especially desirable advertising space for which, if it is specifically requested by the advertiser, a publication charges a premium rate.
- presumption of law — a presumption based upon a policy of law or a general rule and not upon the facts or evidence in an individual case.
- prince of darkness — Satan.
- process identifier — (operating system) (PID) An integer used by the Unix kernel to uniquely identify a process. PIDs are returned by the fork system call and can be passed to wait() or kill() to perform actions on the given process.
- programme of study — the prescribed syllabus that pupils must be taught at each key stage in the National Curriculum
- purchasing officer — the member of staff in an organization who is responsible for buying goods or products
- purple loosestrife — an Old World plant, Lythrum salicaria, of the loosestrife family, widely naturalized in North America, growing in wet places and having spikes of reddish-purple flowers.
- quality of service — (communications, networking) (QoS) The performance properties of a network service, possibly including throughput, transit delay, priority. Some protocols allow packets or streams to include QoS requirements.
- quarterlife crisis — a crisis that may be experienced in one's twenties, involving anxiety over the direction and quality of one's life
- rabbit's-foot fern — hare's-foot fern.
- range of stability — the angle to the perpendicular through which a vessel may be heeled without losing the ability to right itself.
- real-estate office — the place where a real-estate agent works
- recursive function — a function defined in terms of the repeated application of a number of simpler functions to their own values, by specifying a base clause and a recursion formula
- reflection density — a measure of the extent to which a surface reflects light or other electromagnetic radiation, equal to the logarithm to base ten of the reciprocal of the reflectance
- reinforced plastic — plastic with fibrous matter, such as carbon fibre, embedded in it to confer additional strength
- resistance fighter — someone who fights (for freedom, etc) against an invader in an occupied country, or against their government, etc, often secretly or illegally
- restraint of trade — action tending to interrupt the free flow of goods and services, as by price fixing and other practices that have the effect of reducing competition.
- russian federation — a republic extending from E Europe to N and W Asia. 6,593,000 sq. mi. (17,076,000 sq. km). Capital: Moscow.
- safety regulations — regulations or rules that are put in place to ensure a product, event, etc, is safe and not dangerous
- safety-deposit box — a lockable metal box or drawer, especially in a bank vault, used for safely storing valuable papers, jewelry, etc.
- saint peter's fish — another name for tilapia, taken from a Bible story about Saint Peter catching a fish with a coin in its mouth
- sampling frequency — sample rate
- schofield barracks — a town on central Oahu, in central Hawaii.
- school certificate — (in England and Wales between 1917 and 1951 and currently in New Zealand) a certificate awarded to school pupils who pass a public examination: the equivalent of GCSE
- scientific officer — a police officer who carries out forensic examinations
- scottish blackface — a common breed of hardy mountain sheep having horns and a black face, kept chiefly on the mainland of Scotland
- scruff of the neck — If someone takes you by the scruff of the neck, they take hold of the back of your neck or collar suddenly and roughly.
- seafloor spreading — a process in which new ocean floor is created as molten material from the earth's mantle rises in margins between plates or ridges and spreads out.