16-letter words containing f, i, r, l
- tower of silence — a circular stone platform, typically 30 feet (9.1 meter) in height, on which the Parsees of India leave their dead to be devoured by vultures.
- trailing fuchsia — a shrub, Fuchsia procumbens, of the evening primrose family, native to New Zealand, having long-stalked leaves and drooping, orange-and-purple flowers, used in hanging baskets.
- transfer molding — a method of molding thermosetting plastic in which the plastic enters a closed mold from an adjoining chamber in which it has been softened.
- transformational — the act or process of transforming.
- twin-lens reflex — See under reflex camera. Abbreviation: TLR.
- ultra filtration — Physical Chemistry. a filter for purifying sols, having a membrane with pores sufficiently small to prevent the passage of the suspended particles.
- unconfirmability — to establish the truth, accuracy, validity, or genuineness of; corroborate; verify: This report confirms my suspicions.
- undifferentiable — capable of being differentiated.
- unenforceability — to put or keep in force; compel obedience to: to enforce a rule; Traffic laws will be strictly enforced.
- unfair dismissal — wrongful firing from a job
- utility software — system software that manages and optimizes the performance of hardware
- velcro fastening — a fastening made of Velcro
- vertical farming — a proposed system of growing crops in urban areas using specially designed skyscrapers
- visual interface — (tool, text) (vi) /V-I/, /vi:/, *never* /siks/ A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy for an early BSD release. vi became the de facto standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favourite outside of MIT until the rise of Emacs after about 1984. It tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default setup provides no indication of which mode the editor is in (one correspondent accordingly reports that he has often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/). Nevertheless it is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll preferred it), and even some Emacs fans resort to it as a mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up faster than the bulkier versions of Emacs). See holy wars.
- vulcanized fiber — a leatherlike substance made by compression of layers of paper or cloth that have been treated with acids or zinc chloride, used chiefly for electric insulation.
- waterleaf family — the plant family Hydrophyllaceae, characterized by usually hairy herbaceous plants having lobed, divided, or compound leaves, five-parted blue or white flowers, and capsular fruit, and including baby-blue-eyes, phacelia, and waterleaf.
- welfare benefits — financial assistance; social security payment
- welfare services — services that provide help with people's living conditions and financial problems
- well-diversified — distinguished by various forms or by a variety of objects: diversified activity.
- west springfield — a city in SW Massachusetts, near Springfield.
- william bradford — Gamaliel, 1863–1932, U.S. biographer and novelist.
- winchester rifle — a type of magazine rifle, first made in about 1866.
- windchill factor — an estimated measurement of the cooling effect of air and wind, esp. when applied to the loss of body heat from exposed skin; chill factor
- windfall profits — Windfall profits are excessive profits with a non-business cause such as a natural disaster.
- world federalism — federalism on a worldwide level.
- world federalist — a promoter or supporter of world federalism.
- writ of election — a writ by an executive authority requiring the holding of an election, especially one issued by a governor to require a special election for filling a vacancy in the representation from a state.
- wrongful trading — the act of allowing a company to continue trading when its insolvency is inevitable