17-letter words containing f, i, n, l
- falkland islander — a person from the Falkland Islands
- falling diphthong — a diphthong in which the first of the two apparent vocalic elements is of greater stress or sonority and the second is of lesser stress or sonority, as in (ī), (ou), (oi), etc.
- farmers' alliance — an informal name for various regional political organizations that farmers established in the 1880s and that led to the formation of the Peoples' party in 1891–92.
- farthingale chair — an English chair of c1600 having no arms, a straight and low back, and a high seat.
- fear and loathing — (Hunter S. Thompson) A state inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards that are totally brain-damaged but ubiquitous - Intel 8086s, COBOL, EBCDIC, or any IBM machine except the Rios (also known as the RS/6000).
- fee-paying school — a school which charges fees to parents of pupils
- feel like oneself — to perceive or examine by touch.
- feint-ruled paper — writing paper with light horizontal lines printed across at regular intervals
- felix frankfurter — Felix, 1882–1965, U.S. jurist, born in Austria: associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court 1939–62.
- female chauvinist — a female who patronizes, disparages, or otherwise denigrates males in the belief that they are inferior to females and thus deserving of less than equal treatment or benefit.
- female-chauvinist — a person who is aggressively and blindly patriotic, especially one devoted to military glory.
- fermentation lock — a valve placed on the top of bottles of fermenting wine to allow bubbles to escape
- ferrimagnetically — In a ferrimagnetic manner.
- field penny-cress — the common penny-cress, Thlaspi arvense.
- fifth normal form — database normalisation
- financial adviser — A financial adviser is someone whose job it is to advise people about financial products and services.
- financial futures — futures in a stock-exchange index, currency exchange rate, or interest rate enabling banks, building societies, brokers, and speculators to hedge their involvement in these markets
- financial manager — a person responsible for the supervision and handling of the financial affairs of an organization
- financial planner — a person whose business is advising individuals in the management of their financial affairs
- find fault (with) — to seek and point out faults (of); complain (about); criticize
- fingerling potato — a finger-shaped potato
- fingertip control — control exercised through your fingertips, e.g. by touching a touchscreen
- first call on sth — If you have first call on something, you will be asked before anyone else whether you want to buy or use it.
- first normal form — database normalisation
- flagrante delicto — Law. in the very act of committing the offense.
- flea in one's ear — a sharp rebuke
- flexible response — a military strategy that enables the response to an attack to be adapted to the nature and strength of the attack
- flight instrument — any instrument used to indicate the altitude, attitude, airspeed, drift, or direction of an aircraft.
- flight lieutenant — A flight lieutenant is an officer of middle rank in the British air force.
- flight supplement — an additional charge payable on the price of an air ticket
- floating currency — a currency that is free to fluctuate against other currencies in accordance with market forces
- floating dry dock — a dock that floats and can be lowered in the water for the entrance of a ship, and then raised for use as a dry dock
- florentine stitch — a straight stitch worked in a high and low relief pattern to form a variety of zigzag or oblique designs.
- flowering currant — an ornamental shrub, Ribes sanguineum, growing to 2 to 3 metres (6 to 9ft) in height, with red, crimson, yellow, or white flowers: family Saxifragaceae
- flowering dogwood — a North American dogwood tree, Cornus florida, having small greenish flowers in the spring, surrounded by white or pink bracts that resemble petals: the state flower and the state tree of Virginia.
- flowering tobacco — any plant belonging to the genus Nicotiana, of the nightshade family, as N. alata and N. sylvestris, having clusters of fragrant flowers that usually bloom at night, grown as an ornamental.
- fluid lubrication — lubrication in which bearing surfaces are separated by an oil film sustained by the motion of the parts
- fluorescent light — a fluorescent lamp in domestic or commercial use; a fluorescent strip
- fluorescent strip — a fluorescent light in the form of a long strip
- folie de grandeur — a delusion of grandeur; megalomania.
- football hooligan — a noisy violent football supporter
- fore-and-aft sail — any of various sails, as jib-headed sails, gaff sails, lugsails, lateen sails, spritsails, staysails, and jibs, that do not set on yards and whose normal position, when not trimmed, is in a fore-and-aft direction amidships.
- foreign relations — (used with a singular verb) the field of foreign affairs: an expert in foreign relations.
- formative element — a morpheme that serves as an affix, not as a base, or root, in word formation.
- fouquier-tinville — Antoine Quentin [ahn-twan kahn-tan] /ɑ̃ˈtwan kɑ̃ˈtɛ̃/ (Show IPA), 1747?–95, French revolutionist: prosecutor during the Reign of Terror.
- fractal dimension — (mathematics) A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by "measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object. Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object. For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by repeatedly replacing ___ with _/\_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/\_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
- fractionalization — Separation into parts by fractionalizing.
- fraternal society — a club or other association, usually of men, having a limited membership and devoted to professional, religious, charitable, or social activities.
- freewill offering — a voluntary religious contribution made in addition to what may be expected or required.
- french provincial — noting, pertaining to, or resembling a style of furnishings and decoration originating in the provinces of France in the 18th century, derived from but less ornate than styles then current in Paris and featuring simply carved wood furniture, often with decorative curved moldings.