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16-letter words containing f, r, a, c

  • deboursification — (jargon)   Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: sneck.
  • decimal fraction — a fraction whose denominator is some power of 10, usually indicated by a dot (decimal point or point) written before the numerator: as 0.4 = 4/10; 0.126 = 126/1000.
  • definite article — The word 'the' is sometimes called the definite article.
  • dictionary flame — [Usenet] An attempt to sidetrack a debate away from issues by insisting on meanings for key terms that presuppose a desired conclusion or smuggle in an implicit premise. A common tactic of people who prefer argument over definitions to disputes about reality. Compare spelling flame.
  • disenfranchising — Present participle of disenfranchise.
  • disfranchisement — to deprive (a person) of a right of citizenship, as of the right to vote.
  • diversifications — Plural form of diversification.
  • documentary film — factual, informative film
  • dolce far niente — pleasing inactivity.
  • dorothy canfield — Dorothy, Fisher, Dorothy Canfield.
  • drag coefficient — a measure of the drag of an object in a moving fluid, esp air
  • drug trafficking — smuggling illegal drugs
  • east coast fever — a disease of cattle, endemic in east and central Africa, caused by a parasite, Theileria parva, that is carried by ticks
  • electric furnace — any furnace in which the heat is provided by an electric current
  • electrical fault — a fault caused by something electrical
  • electronic flash — Photography
  • extrinsic factor — vitamin B12
  • face recognition — the ability of a computer to scan, store, and recognize human faces for use in identifying people
  • facial neuralgia — paroxysmal darting pain and muscular twitching in the face, evoked by rubbing certain points of the face.
  • factor of safety — the ratio of the maximum stress that a structural part or other piece of material can withstand to the maximum stress estimated for it in the use for which it is designed.
  • fahrenheit scale — Gabriel Daniel [German gah-bree-el dah-nee-el] /German ˈgɑ briˌɛl ˈdɑ niˌɛl/ (Show IPA), 1686–1736, German physicist: devised a temperature scale and introduced the use of mercury in thermometers.
  • fair-trade price — the price set for a commodity by the Fairtrade Foundation
  • false beechdrops — either of two parasitic or saprophytic plants of the genus Monotropa, especially the tawny or reddish M. hypopithys (false beechdrops) of eastern North America.
  • family of curves — a collection of curves whose equations differ only by values assigned a parameter or parameters.
  • fancy dress ball — a ball at which the guests wear fancy dress
  • fandango on core — (jargon, programming)   (Unix/C, from the Mexican dance) In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing a core dump, or corrupts the malloc arena in such a way as to cause mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to have "done a fandango on core". On low-end personal machines without an MMU, this can corrupt the operating system itself, causing massive lossage. Other frenetic dances such as the rhumba, cha-cha, or watusi, may be substituted. See aliasing bug, precedence lossage, smash the stack, memory leak, memory smash, overrun screw, core.
  • farmer's reducer — a solution of ferricyanide and hypo for reducing density and increasing contrast in a negative.
  • farmhouse cheese — cheese that is made by traditional methods, on or as if on a farm
  • father christmas — Santa Claus.
  • father confessor — confessor (def 2).
  • feather merchant — a person who avoids responsibility and effort; loafer.
  • feature creature — [Possibly from slang "creature feature" for a horror movie] 1. One who loves to add features to designs or programs, perhaps at the expense of coherence, concision or taste. 2. Alternately, a mythical being that induces otherwise rational programmers to perpetrate such crocks. See also feeping creaturism, creeping featurism.
  • federal district — a district in which the national government of a country is located, especially one in Latin America.
  • federated church — a church whose membership includes two or more congregations of different denominational affiliation.
  • feedback control — (electronics)   A control system which monitors its effect on the system it is controlling and modifies its output accordingly. For example, a thermostat has two inputs: the desired temperature and the current temperature (the latter is the feedback). The output of the thermostat changes so as to try to equalise the two inputs. Computer disk drives use feedback control to position the read/write heads accurately on a recording track. Complex systems such as the human body contain many feedback systems that interact with each other; the homeostasis mechanisms that control body temperature and acidity are good examples.
  • feel constrained — If you feel constrained to do something, you feel that you must do it, even though you would prefer not to.
  • feel-good factor — When journalists refer to the feel-good factor, they mean that people are feeling hopeful and optimistic about the future.
  • feeping creature — [feeping creaturism] An unnecessary feature; a bit of chrome that, in the speaker's judgment, is the camel's nose for a whole horde of new features.
  • feminine caesura — a caesura occurring immediately after an unstressed or short syllable.
  • femme de chambre — a chambermaid
  • ferdinand marcos — Ferdinand E(dralin) [ed-ruh-lin] /ˈɛd rə lɪn/ (Show IPA), 1917–1989, Philippine political leader: president 1965–86.
  • ferricyanic acid — a brown, crystalline, unstable, water-soluble solid, H 3 Fe(CN) 6 , obtained by the interaction of a ferricyanide and an acid.
  • ferrocyanic acid — a white, crystalline, unstable, water-soluble solid, H 4 Fe(CN) 6 , obtained by the interaction of a ferrocyanide and an acid.
  • fertility factor — a sex-determining chromosome or gene.
  • feulgen reaction — a reaction in which an aldehyde combines with a modified Schiff's reagent to produce a purplish compound: used especially to test for the presence of DNA
  • fibonacci number — a number in the Fibonacci sequence, each of which is the sum of the previous two
  • fibonacci series — a sequence of integers in which each integer (Fibonacci number) after the second is the sum of the two preceding integers; specif., the series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . .
  • filter cigarette — a cigarette with a filter tip
  • finance director — financial manager
  • finance minister — a member of a government in charge of the financial affairs of a state etc
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