21-letter words containing f, i, r, e
- in (or out of) phase — in (or not in) a state of exactly parallel movements, oscillations, etc.; in (or not in) synchronization
- in (or out of) place — in (or out of) the customary, proper, or assigned place
- in a state of undress — If someone is in a state of undress, they do not have all their clothes on.
- in the course of time — eventually
- in the first instance — You say in the first instance to mention something that is the first step in a series of actions.
- infant mortality rate — number of babies dying
- infant welfare clinic — a medical facility that specializes in the health and well-being of young babies
- infectious ectromelia — ectromelia (def 2).
- infertility treatment — treatment aimed at helping a couple conceive
- inflationary universe — a version of the big bang theory in which the universe underwent very rapid growth during the first fraction of a second before it settled down to its current rate of expansion.
- information appliance — (hardware) (IA) A consumer device that performs only a few targeted tasks and is controlled by a simple touch-screen interface or push buttons on the device's enclosure.
- information gathering — the process of collecting information about something
- information retrieval — the systematic storage and recovery of data, as from a file, card catalog, or the memory bank of a computer. Abbreviation: IR.
- information scientist — someone who works in information science
- insurance certificate — a certificate that shows that a person or organization has insurance
- interest-rate futures — financial futures based on projected movements of interest rates
- isolation transformer — An isolation transformer is a transformer with physically separate primary and secondary windings, that prevent it from transferring unwanted noise from the input circuit to the output windings.
- java native interface — (programming) (JNI) A native programming interface for Java that allows Java code running inside a Java Virtual Machine to interoperate with applications and libraries written in other programming languages such as C, C++ and assembly language.
- knock someone for six — to upset or overwhelm someone completely; stun
- lady windermere's fan — a comedy (1892) by Oscar Wilde.
- lafayette, marquis de — Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier [ma-ree zhaw-zef pawl eev rawk zheel-ber dy maw-tyey] /maˈri ʒɔˈzɛf pɔl iv rɔk ʒilˈbɛr dü mɔˈtyeɪ/ (Show IPA), Marquis de. Also, La Fayette. 1757–1834, French soldier, statesman, and liberal leader, who served in the American Revolutionary Army as aide-de-camp to General Washington, and took a leading part in the French revolutions of 1789 and 1830.
- lafcadio's adventures — French Les Caves du Vatican. a novel (1914) by André Gide.
- lateral magnification — the ratio of the height of the image to the height of the object in a lens or other optical system.
- law of thermodynamics — any of three principles variously stated in equivalent forms, being the principle that the change of energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work done (first law of thermodynamics) the principle that no cyclic process is possible in which heat is absorbed from a reservoir at a single temperature and converted completely into mechanical work (second law of thermodynamics) and the principle that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations (third law of thermodynamics)
- leaning tower of pisa — a round, marble campanile in Pisa, Italy, begun in 1174 and now 17 feet (5.2 meters) out of the perpendicular in its height of 179 feet (54 meters).
- learning difficulties — difficulty experienced in reaching the average standard of people of the same age group as regards intellectual and cognitive skills and performance
- like a blue-arsed fly — in a state of frenzied activity
- linear transformation — linear map
- liquefied natural gas — a mixture of various gases, esp methane, liquefied under pressure for transportation and used as an engine fuel
- lordship of the isles — an overlordship of the Western Isles of Scotland and adjacent lands instituted in 1266 when Magnus of Norway ceded the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, and Kintyre to the King of Scotland, and claimed by the chiefs of Clan Dougall and later by those of Clan Donald. The title was forfeited to James IV in 1493 and is now held by the eldest son of the sovereign
- lost in the underflow — (jargon) Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to "floating point underflow". The Hacker's Jargon File claimed that it is also a pun on "undertow" (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the underflow". Compare epsilon, epsilon squared; see also overflow bit.
- magnetocaloric effect — an increase or decrease of the temperature of a thermally isolated magnetic substance accompanying an increase or decrease in the intensity of a magnetic field.
- magnificent riflebird — a bird of paradise, Craspedophora magnifica
- make up for lost time — compensate for past inaction
- manufacturing process — chain of production
- mayor of casterbridge — a novel (1886) by Thomas Hardy.
- member of the wedding — a novel (1946) and play (1950) by Carson McCullers.
- minister of the crown — any Government minister of cabinet rank
- mistress of the robes — (in Britain) a lady of high rank in charge of the Queen's wardrobe
- necrotising fasciitis — a disease caused by the bacterium streptococcus pyogenes, in which the fasciae of the muscles or other organs become inflamed, resulting in rapid destruction of overlying tissues
- neither fish nor fowl — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- nellis air force base — the largest air base in the U.S. Air Force's Tactical Air Command, located near Las Vegas, Nev., and developed from what began in 1941 as a U.S. Army Air Corps field.
- network filing system — (spelling) Misnomer for Network File System.
- nightmare file system — Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a higher spl level). Then another machine tries to reach either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is frozen - worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great misfeature). ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of Unix's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none of these problems in the early 1970s. See also broadcast storm.
- no smoke without fire — the evidence strongly suggests something has indeed happened
- nominative of address — a noun naming the person to whom one is speaking.
- north pacific current — a warm current flowing eastward across the Pacific Ocean.
- of time and the river — a novel (1935) by Thomas Wolfe.
- of your own free will — out of choice
- one foot in the grave — near to death