19-letter words containing f, o, u, a
- lagrangian function — kinetic potential.
- land of opportunity — Arkansas (used as a nickname).
- languages of choice — C and Lisp. Nearly every hacker knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities. There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with Fortran, or even assembler, as their language of choice. They often prefer to be known as Real Programmers, and other hackers consider them a bit odd (see "The Story of Mel"). Assembler is generally no longer considered interesting or appropriate for anything but HLL implementation, glue, and a few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems programs. Fortran occupies a shrinking niche in scientific programming. Most hackers tend to frown on languages like Pascal and Ada, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered necessary for hacking (see bondage-and-discipline language), and to regard everything even remotely connected with COBOL or other traditional card walloper languages as a total and unmitigated loss.
- left-luggage locker — a coin-operated locker in which luggage can be left
- left-luggage office — a checkroom for baggage.
- lift the curtain on — to begin
- malice aforethought — a predetermination to commit an unlawful act without just cause or provocation (applied chiefly to cases of first-degree murder).
- malicious falsehood — a lie told by someone who knows the lie is false or knows it will do harm to the person it is concerning
- master of foxhounds — the person responsible for the conduct of a fox hunt and to whom all members of the hunt and its staff are responsible. Abbreviation: M.F.H.
- means of production — resources: equipment, workers
- measure for measure — a comedy (1604) by Shakespeare.
- minimum iron fabric — cloth used to make clothes that require little ironing
- mother-of-thousands — strawberry geranium.
- municipal bond fund — a mutual fund that invests in municipal bonds.
- mutual fund company — a company that sells and manages mutual funds
- negation by failure — An extralogical feature of Prolog and other logic programming languages in which failure of unification is treated as establishing the negation of a relation. For example, if Ronald Reagan is not in our database and we asked if he was an American, Prolog would answer "no".
- nonforfeiture value — any benefit, as cash or other form of insurance, available to a life-insurance policyholder who discontinues premium payments on the policy.
- objectfuscated code — (humour, programming) Object-oriented code which has been abstracted to so many levels that no-one can understand it anymore. A play on obfuscated code.
- on cue/as if on cue — If you say that something happened on cue or as if on cue, you mean that it happened just when it was expected to happen, or just at the right time.
- open-hearth furnace — a process of steelmaking in which the charge is laid in a furnace (open-hearth furnace) on a shallow hearth and heated directly by burning gas as well as radiatively by the furnace walls.
- oriental fruit moth — a moth, Grapholitha molesta, introduced into the U.S. from Asia, the larvae of which infest and feed on the twigs and fruits of peach, plum, and related trees.
- out of the ordinary — of no special quality or interest; commonplace; unexceptional: One novel is brilliant, the other is decidedly ordinary; an ordinary person.
- performance figures — the statistics that indicate how well or badly a company or organization has performed
- peroxysulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
- phacoemulsification — the removal of a cataract by first liquefying the affected lens with ultrasonic vibrations and then extracting it by suction.
- phakoemulsification — the removal of a cataract by first liquefying the affected lens with ultrasonic vibrations and then extracting it by suction.
- pillars of hercules — the two promontories at the E end of the Strait of Gibraltar: the Rock of Gibraltar on the European side and the Jebel Musa on the African side; according to legend, formed by Hercules
- potassium bisulfate — a colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KHSO 4 , used chiefly in the conversion of tartrates to bitartrates.
- presumption of fact — a presumption based on experience or knowledge of the relationship between a known fact and a fact inferred from it.
- production platform — offshore power station
- profitability study — a study of how much profit a company, organization, etc, makes or how profitable it is
- pseudo-professional — following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain: a professional builder.
- pugwash conferences — international peace conferences of scientists held regularly to discuss world problems: Nobel peace prize 1995 awarded to Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005) , one of the founders of the conferences, secretary-general (1957–73), and president (1988–97)
- put a figure on sth — When you put a figure on an amount, you say exactly how much it is.
- put on the feed bag — Also called nose bag. a bag for feeding horses, placed before the mouth and fastened around the head with straps.
- radioactive fallout — the settling to the ground of airborne particles ejected into the atmosphere from the earth by explosions, eruptions, forest fires, etc., especially such settling from nuclear explosions (radioactive fallout) Compare rainout.
- radius of curvature — the absolute value of the reciprocal of the curvature at a point on a curve.
- rapture of the deep — nitrogen narcosis.
- reciprocity failure — a failure of the two exposure variables, light intensity and exposure time, to behave in a reciprocal fashion at very high or very low values
- reflux oesophagitis — inflammation of the gullet caused by regurgitation of stomach acids, producing heartburn: may be associated with a hiatus hernia
- republic of ireland — John, 1838–1918, U.S. Roman Catholic clergyman and social reformer, born in Ireland: archbishop of St. Paul, Minn., 1888–1918.
- republic of vietnam — the name (from 1955–75) for South Vietnam, as an independent republic, following the division of the country in 1954 into North Vietnam and South Vietnam
- respiratory failure — a condition in which the respiratory system is unable to provide an adequate supply of oxygen or to remove carbon dioxide efficiently
- reticular formation — a network of neurons in the brainstem involved in consciousness, regulation of breathing, the transmission of sensory stimuli to higher brain centers, and the constantly shifting muscular activity that supports the body against gravity.
- saccharofarinaceous — pertaining to or consisting of sugar and meal.
- school of the squad — an institution where instruction is given, especially to persons under college age: The children are at school.
- sea of tranquillity — Astronomy. Mare Tranquillitatis.
- self-congratulating — the expression or feeling of uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's own accomplishment, good fortune, etc.; complacency.
- self-congratulation — the expression or feeling of uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's own accomplishment, good fortune, etc.; complacency.
- self-congratulatory — the expression or feeling of uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's own accomplishment, good fortune, etc.; complacency.