21-letter words containing f, i, r, m, e
- freedom of expression — the unrestrained right to voice ideas, opinions, etc
- functional imperative — a requirement for the survival of any social system, as communication, control of conflict, or socialization.
- general of the armies — a special rank held by John J. Pershing, equivalent to general of the army.
- glen of imaal terrier — a strongly-built medium-sized variety of terrier with a medium-length coat and short forelegs
- grammatical inference — Deducing a grammar from given examples. Also known as "inductive inference" and recently as "computational learning".
- ground-effect machine — ACV (def 2).
- highest common factor — greatest common divisor. Abbreviation: H.C.F.
- imperfect competition — economics: when sb has excessive influence on market price
- in the course of time — eventually
- infant mortality rate — number of babies dying
- infectious ectromelia — ectromelia (def 2).
- infertility treatment — treatment aimed at helping a couple conceive
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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)
- linear transformation — linear map
- 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
- 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.
- of time and the river — a novel (1935) by Thomas Wolfe.
- operational amplifier — a high-gain, high-input impedance amplifier, usually an integrated circuit, that can perform mathematical operations when suitably wired.
- pacific standard time — See under standard time.
- partial reinforcement — the process of randomly rewarding an organism for making a response on only some of the occasions it makes it
- performance appraisal — the assessment, at regular intervals, of an employee's performance at work
- performance indicator — a quantitative or qualitative measurement, or any other criterion, by which the performance, efficiency, achievement, etc of a person or organization can be assessed, often by comparison with an agreed standard or target
- performance-enhancing — noting or relating to a drug or other substance used to improve one's performance in a sport or other activity requiring strength, stamina, etc.: The use of performance-enhancing steroids by athletes is banned.
- persistence of memory — a painting (1931) by Salvador Dali.
- profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service
- program temporary fix — (programming) (PTF) (Colloquially: Probably This Fixes) An IBM sanctioned patch, often implemented using ZAP or SUPERZAP.
- promoter of the faith — devil's advocate (def 2).
- record of achievement — a statement of the personal and educational development of each pupil
- reinforcement therapy — a behavior modification technique in which appropriate behavior is strengthened through systematic reinforcement.
- return from interrupt — (programming) (RTI) An instruction mnemonic on many computers including the 6502 and 6800. The variant "RETI" is found among former Zilog Z80 hackers (almost nobody programs these things in assembly code anymore). The Intel 80x86 equivalent is "IRET".
- saint-maur-des-fosses — a town in N central France, near Paris, on the Marne River.