18-letter words containing f, e
- point of reference — A point of reference is something which you use to help you understand a situation or communicate with someone.
- pontifical college — the chief body of priests in ancient Rome.
- 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.
- primate of england — a title of the archbishop of Canterbury.
- 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.
- product life cycle — the four stages (introduction, growth, maturity, and decline) into one of which the sales of a product fall during its market life
- programme of study — the prescribed syllabus that pupils must be taught at each key stage in the National Curriculum
- protein deficiency — a lack or insuffiency of protein
- 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.
- put a bold face on — to seem bold or confident about
- put one in mind of — to remind (one) of
- 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.
- quantum efficiency — the number of electrons released by a photocell per photon of incident radiation of a given energy
- quarry-tiled floor — a floor covered with square or diamond-shaped unglazed floor tiles
- quarterlife crisis — a crisis that may be experienced in one's twenties, involving anxiety over the direction and quality of one's life
- quick off the mark — If you are quick off the mark, you are quick to understand or respond to something. If you are slow off the mark, you are slow to understand or respond to something.
- rabbit's-foot fern — hare's-foot fern.
- rabbit-foot clover — a plant, Trifolium arvense, having trifoliate leaves with narrow leaflets and fuzzy, cylindrical, grayish-pink flower heads.
- rabbit-proof fence — a fence through which rabbits are unable to pass
- radiant efficiency — the ratio of the power emitted by a source of radiation to the power consumed by it
- raffinate recovery — Raffinate recovery is the use of a substance which is left after a process is complete and the desired substances have been removed.
- range of stability — the angle to the perpendicular through which a vessel may be heeled without losing the ability to right itself.
- reach for the moon — to desire or attempt something unattainable or difficult to obtain
- reaction formation — a behavioral tendency developed in direct opposition to a repressed impulse.
- real-estate office — the place where a real-estate agent works
- recruiting officer — a person whose job is to recruit staff, esp on behalf of the military
- 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
- reference counting — (programming) A garbage collection technique where each memory cell contains a count of the number of other cells which point to it. If this count reaches zero the cell is freed and its pointers to other cells are followed to decrement their counts, and so on recursively. This technique cannot cope with circular data structures. Cells in such structures refer (indirectly) to themselves and so will never have a zero reference count. This means they would never be reclaimed, even when there are no references from outside the structure.
- 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
- refrigerated lorry — a lorry which is chilled in the back as for storing food
- reinforced plastic — plastic with fibrous matter, such as carbon fibre, embedded in it to confer additional strength
- relative frequency — the ratio of the number of times an event occurs to the number of occasions on which it might occur in the same period.
- repeat performance — sth done again
- reproduction proof — repro proof.
- 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.
- retirement benefit — a payment made to a retired person
- return to the fold — come back home
- return-flue boiler — a fire-tube boiler having flues that collect the combustion gases at the end of the boiler opposite the fire door and pass them through the boiler to an uptake above the fire door.
- richard p. feynman — (person, computing, architecture) /fayn'mn/ 1918-1988. A US physicist, computer scientist and author who graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton. Feynmane was a key figure in helping Oppenheimer and team develop atomic bomb. In 1950 he became a professor at Caltech and in 1965 became Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics for QED (quantum electrodynamics). He was a primary figure in "solving" the Challenger disaster O-ring problem. He "rediscovered" the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Tuva. The 2001 film "Infinity" about Feynman's early life featured Matthew Broderick and Patricia Arquette. In 2001, "QED", a play about Feynman's life featuring Alan Alda opened.
- room for manoeuvre — If you have room for manoeuvre, you have the opportunity to change your plans if it becomes necessary or desirable.