21-letter words containing f, i, n, e, r, s
- reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- rutherford scattering — the scattering of an alpha particle through a large angle with respect to the original direction of motion of the particle, caused by an atom (Rutherford atom) with most of the mass and all of the positive electric charge concentrated at a center or nucleus.
- saint-maur-des-fosses — a town in N central France, near Paris, on the Marne River.
- saponification number — the number of milligrams of potassium hydroxide required to saponify one gram of a given ester, especially a glyceride.
- satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
- scientific empiricism — the philosophy that there are no real differences between the sciences.
- self-characterization — portrayal; description: the actor's characterization of a politician.
- semantic differential — a technique for measuring the connotative meaning of concepts by having an individual rate each concept on a series of graduated scales, each scale defined by a pair of polar adjectives, as good–bad or strong–weak.
- set the world on fire — the earth or globe, considered as a planet.
- sieve of eratosthenes — a method of obtaining prime numbers by sifting out the composite numbers from the set of natural numbers so that only prime numbers remain.
- silicon tetrafluoride — a colorless, fuming gas, SiF 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of fluosilicic acid.
- sing a different tune — a succession of musical sounds forming an air or melody, with or without the harmony accompanying it.
- sing for one's supper — to obtain something by performing a service
- single parent benefit — a form of government funded financial assistance paid to single parents
- snap one's fingers at — any of the terminal members of the hand, especially one other than the thumb.
- something for nothing — If you say that someone is getting something for nothing, you disapprove of the fact that they are getting what they want without doing or giving anything in return.
- south pacific current — an ocean current that flows E in the South Pacific Ocean parallel to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
- sovereign wealth fund — an investment fund created using the financial assets of a national government
- spirits of turpentine — oil of turpentine.
- split-finger fastball — a type of fastball that sinks abruptly as it nears home plate, thrown with the grip used for a forkball
- split-screen facility — a facility allowing different scenes to be shown on screen at the same time
- stare one in the face — to be glaringly obvious or imminent
- stations of the cross — a series of 14 crosses, often accompanied by 14 pictures or carvings, arranged in order around the walls of a church, to commemorate 14 supposed stages in Christ's journey to Calvary
- statistical inference — the theory, methods, and practice of forming judgments about the parameters of a population, usually on the basis of random sampling
- stem-and-leaf diagram — a histogram in which the data points falling within each class interval are listed in order
- sun protection factor — SPF.
- supplementary benefit — (formerly) an extra amount of money that is paid to someone by the government, in addition to their normal income. Replaced by income support in 1988
- surface friction drag — the part of the drag on a body moving through a fluid that is dependent on the nature of the surface of the body
- surface of projection — the surface upon which an image or a set of points is projected.
- surface of revolution — a surface formed by revolving a plane curve about a given line.
- sweet spirit of nitre — ethyl nitrite spirit.
- synchronized shifting — gear shifting in which the gears to be meshed are made to rotate at the same speed.
- take one's finger out — stop delaying or procrastinating
- tetrabromofluorescein — eosin (def 1).
- the acting profession — actors considered as a group
- the microsoft network — (networking) (MSN) Microsoft's ISP and online content service, launched in October 1996. Not to be confused with Microsoft Networking. MSN was originally based on custom software and protocols, however Microsoft saw the error of their ways and adopted Internet standards. MSN now provides standard WWW and email facilities, albeit with Microsoft's Internet Explorer web-browser and the Outlook Express email software. The service also provides "Community Services" including newsgroups, forums, and chat.
- the oldest profession — prostitution
- the origin of species — (On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life) a treatise (1859) by Charles Darwin setting forth his theory of evolution.
- the shipping forecast — a radio broadcast made by the BBC of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the British Isles
- the stationery office — (in the UK) the company that supplies the civil service with all its office supplies, machinery, printing and binding, etc
- theater of operations — the part of the theater of war, including a combat zone and a communications zone, that is engaged in military operations and their support.
- to cross your fingers — If you cross your fingers, you put one finger on top of another and hope for good luck. If you say that someone is keeping their fingers crossed, you mean they are hoping for good luck.
- to have green fingers — If someone has green fingers, they are very good at gardening and their plants grow well.
- to risk life and limb — If someone risks life and limb, they do something very dangerous that may cause them to die or be seriously injured.
- transformational rule — Linguistics. a rule of transformational grammar that relates two phrase markers in the course of a derivation from the deep to the surface syntactic representation of a sentence, as by reordering, inserting, or deleting elements; a rule that converts deep structures into surface structures.
- tumor necrosis factor — a protein, produced in humans and other animals, that is destructive to cells showing abnormally rapid growth: identical with cachectin. Abbreviation: TNF.
- uniform business rate — a local tax in the UK paid by businesses, based on a local valuation of their premises and a rate fixed by central government that applies throughout the country
- uniform resource name — (web) (URN, previously Uniform/Universal Resource Number) 1. Any URI which is not a URL. 2. A particular scheme which is currently (1991-4) under development by the IETF, which should provide for the resolution using Internet protocols of names which have a greater persistence than that currently associated with Internet host names or organisations (as used in URLs). Uniform Resource Names will be URI schemes that improve on URLs in reliability over time, including authenticity, replication, and high availability. When defined, a URN in sense 1 will be an example of a URN in sense 2.
- universal affirmative — a proposition of the form “All S is P.” Symbol: A, a.
- universal disk format — (storage, standard) (UDF) A CD-ROM file system standard that is required for DVD ROMs. UDF is the OSTA's replacement for the ISO 9660 file system used on CD-ROMs, but will be mostly used on DVD. DVD multimedia disks use UDF to contain MPEG audio and video streams. To read DVDs you need a DVD drive, the kernel driver for the drive, MPEG video support, and a UDF driver. DVDs containing both UDF filesystems and ISO 9660 filesystems can be read without UDF support. UDF can also be used by CD-R and CD-RW recorders in packet writing mode.