17-letter words containing f, o, s
- on the half shell — served raw, with seasonings, on a half shell
- one for the books — a handwritten or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.
- one of these days — at some future time
- one size fits all — (of clothing) designed to fit people of a wide range of sizes.
- one-size-fits-all — (of clothing) designed to fit people of a wide range of sizes.
- orange free state — a province in central Republic of South Africa: a Boer republic 1854–1900; a British colony (Orange River Colony, ) 1900–10. 49,647 sq. mi. (128,586 sq. km). Capital: Bloemfontein.
- order of business — a task assigned or to be dealt with: Our first order of business is to reduce expenses.
- orifice discharge — Orifice discharge is a model for calculating how quickly a fluid will come out of a punctured vessel or pipe.
- origin of species — (On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life) a treatise (1859) by Charles Darwin setting forth his theory of evolution.
- other fish to fry — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- out of all reason — unreasonable
- out of commission — the act of committing or entrusting a person, group, etc., with supervisory power or authority.
- out of harm's way — If someone or something is out of harm's way, they are in a safe place away from danger or from the possibility of being damaged.
- out of one's head — the upper part of the body in humans, joined to the trunk by the neck, containing the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
- out of one's mind — (in a human or other conscious being) the element, part, substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.: the processes of the human mind.
- out of this world — the earth or globe, considered as a planet.
- out on one's feet — dazed or stunned, but still standing
- overhead camshaft — a camshaft in an automotive engine that is located in the cylinder head over the engine block rather than in the block. Abbreviation: OHC.
- overreach oneself — to fail because of trying to do more than one can
- pacific northwest — the region of North America lying north of the Columbia River and west of the Rockies
- pair of compasses — compass (def 7)
- parts of kesteven — an area in E England constituting a former administrative division of Lincolnshire
- pate de foie gras — See under foie gras.
- performance bonus — a monetary bonus paid to staff who have performed well in their job
- performance drugs — the drugs that are taken illegally by athletes to enhance their sporting performance
- personnel officer — a worker responsible for recruiting employees and dealing with matters relating to them
- phase of the moon — Used humorously as a random parameter on which something is said to depend. Sometimes implies unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to determine. "This feature depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon." See also heisenbug. True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend on the phase of the moon. There was a little subroutine that had traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an approximation to the moon's true phase. GLS incorporated this routine into a Lisp program that, when it wrote out a file, would print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long. Very occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read back in the program would barf. The length of the first line depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug literally depended on the phase of the moon! The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but the typesetter "corrected" it. This has since been described as the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.
- phlebotomus fever — sandfly fever.
- piece of business — business (def 10).
- pincushion flower — scabious2 (def 1).
- pink-footed goose — a Eurasian goose, Anser brachyrhynchus, having a reddish-brown head, pink legs, and a pink band on its black beak
- plains of abraham — a high plain adjoining the city of Quebec, Canada: battlefield where the English under Wolfe defeated the French under Montcalm in 1759.
- play with oneself — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- point of presence — (PoP) A site where there exists a collection of telecommunications equipment, usually modems, digital leased lines and multi-protocol routers. An Internet access provider may operate several PoPs distributed throughout their area of operation to increase the chance that their subscribers will be able to reach one with a local telephone call. The alternative is for them to use virtual PoPs (virtual points of presence) via some third party.
- point of purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
- point-of-purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
- poison-arrow frog — a small, bright-colored terrestrial frog of the family Dendrobatidae, of Central and South American rain forests, that secretes a virulent poison from its skin, once used on the tips of Indian hunting arrows.
- positive definite — (of a quadratic form) positive for all real values of the variables, where the values are not all zero.
- positive feedback — Electronics. the process of returning part of the output of a circuit, system, or device to the input, either to oppose the input (negative feedback) or to aid the input (positive feedback) acoustic feedback.
- potassium sulfate — a crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 2 SO 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers, alums, and mineral water, and as a reagent in analytical chemistry.
- pre-manifestation — an act of manifesting.
- pre-modifications — an act or instance of modifying.
- prefect apostolic — the administrator, usually below the rank of bishop, in charge of a prefecture apostolic.
- preferential shop — a shop in which union members are preferred, usually by agreement of an employer with a union.
- presiding officer — the person who presides over the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly
- procurator fiscal — In the Scottish legal system, the procurator fiscal is a public official who puts people on trial.
- professional army — an army of trained soldiers
- professional foul — In football, if a player commits a professional foul, they deliberately do something which is against the rules in order to prevent another player from scoring a goal.
- proof of purchase — a document, such as a receipt, etc, that proves that you have purchased or bought something
- proof-of-purchase — a sales slip, label, box top, or other item associated with a product that is presentable as evidence of actual purchase, as for claiming a refund or rebate.