17-letter words containing f, i, s
- flexible response — a military strategy that enables the response to an attack to be adapted to the nature and strength of the attack
- flickertail state — North Dakota (used as a nickname).
- flight instrument — any instrument used to indicate the altitude, attitude, airspeed, drift, or direction of an aircraft.
- flight supplement — an additional charge payable on the price of an air ticket
- floppy disk drive — disk drive
- florentine stitch — a straight stitch worked in a high and low relief pattern to form a variety of zigzag or oblique designs.
- 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
- fluvioterrestrial — (of animals) able to live in rivers and on land
- 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.
- foreign secretary — foreign minister.
- forensic evidence — evidence obtained by the use of science, for example DNA evidence, etc
- forensic medicine — the application of medical knowledge to questions of civil and criminal law, especially in court proceedings.
- forest enterprise — a British government department responsible for maintaining and expanding forests
- foundation course — A foundation course is a course that you do at some colleges and universities in order to prepare yourself for a longer or more advanced course.
- fourier transform — a mapping of a function, as a signal, that is defined in one domain, as space or time, into another domain, as wavelength or frequency, where the function is represented in terms of sines and cosines.
- 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].
- francis ferdinand — 1863–1914, archduke of Austria: heir apparent to the thrones of Austria and Hungary whose assassination precipitated the outbreak of World War I (nephew of Francis Joseph I).
- francis of assisi — Saint (Giovanni Francesco Bernardone) 1182?–1226, Italian friar: founder of the Franciscan order.
- francisco pizarro — Francisco [fran-sis-koh;; Spanish frahn-thees-kaw,, -sees-] /frænˈsɪs koʊ;; Spanish frɑnˈθis kɔ,, -ˈsis-/ (Show IPA), c1470–1541, Spanish conqueror of Peru.
- frankenstein food — any foodstuff that has been genetically modified
- fraternal society — a club or other association, usually of men, having a limited membership and devoted to professional, religious, charitable, or social activities.
- freight insurance — insurance paid on goods in transport
- french somaliland — a former name of Djibouti (def 1).
- from side to side — movement: back and forth
- frostbite sailing — the sport of sailing in temperate latitudes during the winter despite cold weather.
- fulgencio batista — Fulgencio [fool-hen-syaw] /fulˈhɛn syɔ/ (Show IPA), (Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar) 1901–73, Cuban military leader: dictator of Cuba 1934–40; president 1940–44, 1952–59.
- functional isomer — any of several structural isomers that have the same molecular formula but with the atoms connected in different ways and therefore falling into different functional groups.
- furbish lousewort — any plant belonging to the genus Pedicularis, of the figwort family, as the wood betony, formerly supposed to cause lice in sheep feeding on it: one species, P. furbishiae (Furbish lousewort) of parts of Maine and New Brunswick, Canada, having finely toothed leaves and a cluster of yellow flowers, is endangered and was thought to be extinct until specimens were discovered in 1946 and again in 1976.
- gaseous diffusion — the passage of gas through microporous barriers, a technique used for isotope separation, especially in the preparation of fuel for nuclear reactors.
- get a rise out of — to get up from a lying, sitting, or kneeling posture; assume an upright position: She rose and walked over to greet me. With great effort he rose to his knees.
- get to first base — Baseball. the first in counterclockwise order of the bases from home plate. the position of the player covering the area of the infield near first base.
- gi bill of rights — any of various Congressional bills enacted to provide funds for college educations, home-buying loans, and other benefits for armed-services veterans.
- gibbs free energy — the thermodynamic function of a system that is equal to its enthalpy minus the product of its absolute temperture and entropy: a decrease in the function is equal to the maximum amount of work available exclusive of that due to pressure times volume change during a reversible, isothermal, isobaric process.
- give satisfaction — to satisfy
- go out of fashion — be dated
- go-faster stripes — (jargon) chrome. Mainstream in some parts of UK.
- grain of paradise — Usually, grains of paradise. one of the pungent, peppery seeds of an African plant, Aframomum melegueta, of the ginger family, used to strengthen cordials and in veterinary medicine.
- grandstand finish — a close or exciting ending to a sports match or competition
- great vowel shift — a series of changes in the quality of the long vowels between Middle and Modern English as a result of which all were raised, while the high vowels (ē) and (o̅o̅), already at the upper limit, underwent breaking to become the diphthongs (ī) and (ou).
- half-round chisel — a cold chisel with a semicircular cutting edge used for making narrow channels
- hall of residence — Halls of residence are buildings with rooms or flats, usually built by universities or colleges, in which students live during the term.
- have feelings for — to be emotionally or sexually attracted to
- have it in for sb — If someone has it in for you, they dislike you and try to cause problems for you.
- homo floresiensis — a possible species of very small, primitive human: its fossils were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003.
- homolytic fission — the dissociation of a molecule into two neutral fragments
- house of ill fame — a house of prostitution; brothel
- hydrogasification — a high-temperature, high-pressure process for producing liquid or gaseous fuels from fine particles of coal and hydrogen gas
- if all else fails — You say if all else fails to suggest what could be done in a certain situation if all the other things you have tried are unsuccessful.