17-letter words containing f, o, u, t
- rheumatoid factor — an antibody that is found in the blood of many persons afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis and that reacts against globulins in the blood.
- rough puff pastry — a rich flaky pastry made with butter and used for pie-crusts, flans, etc
- rush-hour traffic — the large number of vehicles that move along roads, travelling to or from work at the beginning and end of the working day
- safety precaution — a precaution that is taken in order to ensure that something is safe and not dangerous
- sawed-off shotgun — rifle with a short barrel
- self-constituting — to compose; form: mortar constituted of lime and sand.
- self-introduction — the act of introducing or the state of being introduced.
- self-purification — a natural process of purifying, as the ability of a body of water to rid itself of pollutants.
- self-renunciation — renunciation of one's own will, interests, etc.
- self-reproduction — the act or process of reproducing.
- shoot one's cuffs — to expose one's shirt cuffs beyond the coat sleeves
- sixty-fourth note — a note having one sixty-fourth of the time value of a whole note; hemidemisemiquaver.
- sixty-fourth rest — a rest equal in time value to a sixty-fourth note.
- skin of our teeth — a play (1942) by Thornton Wilder.
- sound effects man — a man who produces sounds artificially or reproduces them from a recording, etc, to create a theatrical effect, such as the bringing together of two halves of a hollow coconut shell to simulate a horse's gallop. Such sound effects are used in plays, films, etc
- south farmingdale — a town on central Long Island, in SE New York.
- south frigid zone — the part of the earth's surface between the Antarctic Circle and the South Pole.
- south west africa — a former name of Namibia.
- south-west africa — a former name of Namibia.
- southern studfish — See under studfish.
- standard function — a subprogram provided by a translator that carries out a task, for example the computation of a mathematical function, such as sine, square root, etc
- stannous fluoride — a white, crystalline powder, SnF 2 , slightly soluble in water: used as a source of fluorine in the prevention of dental caries, especially as a toothpaste additive.
- star-of-jerusalem — meadow salsify.
- statue of liberty — a large copper statue, on Liberty Island, in New York harbor, depicting a woman holding a burning torch: designed by F. A. Bartholdi and presented to the U.S. by France; unveiled 1886.
- statutory offense — a wrong punishable under a statute, rather than at common law.
- stay of execution — If you are given a stay of execution, you are legally allowed to delay obeying an order of a court of law.
- strut one's stuff — to walk with a vain, pompous bearing, as with head erect and chest thrown out, as if expecting to impress observers.
- suffice it to say — Suffice it to say or suffice to say is used at the beginning of a statement to indicate that what you are saying is obvious, or that you will only give a short explanation.
- sufficient reason — the principle that nothing happens by pure chance, but that an explanation must always be available
- sulfurated potash — a yellowish-brown mixture consisting mainly of potassium polysulfides and potassium thiosulfate, used in treating mange.
- sustentation fund — a fund, esp in the Church of Scotland, to augment the support of ministers
- take upon oneself — to take the responsibility for; accept as a charge
- tell your fortune — When someone tells your fortune, they tell you what they think will happen to you in the future, which they say is shown, for example, by the lines on your hand.
- tetrafluoroethene — a dense colourless gas that is polymerized to make polytetrafluorethene (PTFE). Formula: F2C:CF2
- the carboniferous — the Carboniferous period or rock system
- the life and soul — a person regarded as the main source of merriment and liveliness
- the rann of kutch — an extensive salt waste in W central India, and S Pakistan: consists of the Great Rann in the north and the Little Rann in the southeast; seasonal alternation between marsh and desert; some saltworks. In 1968 an international tribunal awarded about 10 per cent of the border area to Pakistan. Area: 23 000 sq km (9000 sq miles)
- the sound of mull — the water that separates the island of Mull from the mainland of Scotland
- the south pacific — the part of the Pacific Ocean to the south of the equator
- theory of numbers — number theory.
- thermal diffusion — the separation of constituents, often isotopes, of a fluid under the influence of a temperature gradient.
- thiosulfuric acid — an acid, H 2 S 2 O 3 , that may be regarded as sulfuric acid with one oxygen atom replaced by sulfur.
- through the floor — If you say that prices or sales have fallen through the floor, you mean that they have suddenly decreased.
- thuringian forest — a forested mountain region in central Germany: a resort area.
- to drag your feet — If you drag your feet or drag your heels, you delay doing something or do it very slowly because you do not want to do it.
- to feel your oats — to feel exuberant or high-spirited
- to know full well — If you say that a person knows full well that something is true, especially something unpleasant, you are emphasizing that they are definitely aware of it, although they may behave as if they are not.
- to show your face — If you show your face somewhere, you go there and see people, although you are not welcome, are rather unwilling to go, or have not been there for some time.
- transfer function — The transfer function of a circuit is the ratio of the response to the input.
- trapdoor function — a function defined from data by means of a mathematical procedure in such a way that it is easy to obtain the function when the data are known, but when the procedure and data are not known it becomes very difficult to determine the original data: used in cryptography, where the data are the characters of the plain text, or message, and the trapdoor function is the cryptogram.