0%

15-letter words containing f, r, c, o

  • existence proof — non-constructive proof
  • fabric softener — a substance added to fabrics during laundering to make them puffier and softer.
  • factor analysis — the use of one of several methods for reducing a set of variables to a lesser number of new variables, each of which is a function of one or more of the original variables.
  • factory chimney — a tall chimney of a factory
  • factory farming — Factory farming is a system of farming which involves keeping animals indoors, often with very little space, and giving them special foods so that they grow more quickly or produce more eggs or milk.
  • faculty advisor — a member of the faculty who gives advice to students
  • fall cankerworm — the striped, green caterpillar of any of several geometrid moths: a foliage pest of various fruit and shade trees, as Paleacrita vernata (spring cankerworm) and Alsophila pometaria (fall cankerworm)
  • fall from grace — elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action: We watched her skate with effortless grace across the ice. Synonyms: attractiveness, charm, gracefulness, comeliness, ease, lissomeness, fluidity. Antonyms: stiffness, ugliness, awkwardness, clumsiness; klutziness.
  • false buckthorn — a spiny shrub or small tree, Bumelia lanuginosa, of the sapodilla family, native to the southern U.S., having gummy, milky sap and white, bell-shaped flowers and yielding a hard, light-brown wood.
  • fantasmagorical — Alternative form of phantasmagorical.
  • fault tolerance — (architecture)   1. The ability of a system or component to continue normal operation despite the presence of hardware or software faults. This often involves some degree of redundancy. 2. The number of faults a system or component can withstand before normal operation is impaired.
  • fee-for-service — pertaining to the charging of fees for specific services rendered in health care, as distinguished from participating in a prepaid medical practice: fee-for-service medicine.
  • feelgood factor — When journalists refer to the feelgood factor, they mean that people are feeling hopeful and optimistic about the future.
  • fellow creature — a kindred creature, especially a fellow human being.
  • fencepost error — 1. (Rarely "lamp-post error") A problem with the discrete equivalent of a boundary condition, often exhibited in programs by iterative loops. From the following problem: "If you build a fence 100 feet long with posts 10 feet apart, how many posts do you need?" (Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10). For example, suppose you have a long list or array of items, and want to process items m through n; how many items are there? The obvious answer is n - m, but that is off by one; the right answer is n - m + 1. The "obvious" formula exhibits a fencepost error. See also zeroth and note that not all off-by-one errors are fencepost errors. The game of Musical Chairs involves a catastrophic off-by-one error where N people try to sit in N - 1 chairs, but it's not a fencepost error. Fencepost errors come from counting things rather than the spaces between them, or vice versa, or by neglecting to consider whether one should count one or both ends of a row. 2. (Rare) An error induced by unexpected regularities in input values, which can (for instance) completely thwart a theoretically efficient binary tree or hash coding implementation. The error here involves the difference between expected and worst case behaviours of an algorithm.
  • ferric chloride — a compound that in its anhydrous form, FeCl 3 , occurs as a black-brown, water-soluble solid; in its hydrated form, FeCl 3 ⋅xH 2 O, it occurs in orange-yellow, deliquescent crystals: used chiefly in engraving, for deodorizing sewage, as a mordant, and in medicine as an astringent and styptic.
  • ferroelasticity — (physics) A phenomenon, analogous to ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity, in which spontaneous strain arises within a material.
  • fibrocartilages — Plural form of fibrocartilage.
  • fideicommissary — the recipient of a fideicommissum.
  • fighter command — a former unit of the Royal Air Force dedicated to the use of fighter aircraft, esp against enemy bombers and their escorts during WWII
  • file descriptor — (programming, operating system)   An integer that identifies an open file within a process. This number is obtained as a result of opening a file. Operations which read, write, or close a file would take the file descriptor as an input parameter. In many operating system implementations, file descriptors are small integers which index a table of open files. In Unix, file descriptors 0, 1 and 2 correspond to the standard input, standard output and standard error files respectively. See file descriptor leak.
  • fireless cooker — an insulated container that seals in heat to cook food.
  • first-day cover — a cover marked so as to indicate that it was mailed on the first day of issue of the stamp it bears and from one of the cities at which the stamp was issued on that day.
  • fission product — a nuclide produced either directly by nuclear fission or by the radioactive decay of such a nuclide
  • fission reactor — a nuclear reactor in which a fission reaction takes place
  • flavor enhancer — a substance added to food in order to enhance or intensify its flavor: Salt is a common flavor enhancer.
  • flavourdynamics — as in quantum flavour dynamics, a mathematical model used to describe the interaction of flavoured particles (weak force) through the exchange of intermediate vector bosons
  • flight recorder — an electronic device aboard an aircraft that automatically records some aspects of the aircraft's performance in flight.
  • floating charge — an unsecured charge on the assets of an enterprise that allows such assets to be used commercially until the enterprise ceases to operate or the creditor intervenes to demand collateral
  • floating screed — Building Trades. screed (def 3).
  • flock wallpaper — a type of wallpaper with a raised pattern
  • flood insurance — insurance covering loss or damage to property arising from a flood, flood tide, or the like.
  • floor exercises — exercises designed to improve fitness, carried out on the floor
  • florence fennel — a variety of fennel, Foeniculum vulgare azoricum, having enlarged leaf bases, which are blanched and used especially as an ingredient in salads.
  • florida current — the part of the Gulf Stream which extends from the Florida Strait to Cape Hatteras.
  • flow of control — control flow
  • flowers of zinc — a white or yellowish-white, amorphous, odorless, water-insoluble powder, ZnO, used chiefly as a paint pigment, in cosmetics, dental cements, matches, white printing inks, and opaque glass, and in medicine in the treatment of skin conditions.
  • fluorochemicals — Plural form of fluorochemical.
  • focusing screen — a camera in which the image appears on a ground-glass viewer (focusing screen) after being reflected by a mirror or after passing through a prism or semitransparent glass; in one type (single-lens reflex camera) light passes through the same lens to both the ground glass and the film, while in another type (twin-lens reflex camera) light passes through one lens (viewing lens) to the ground glass and through a second lens (taking lens) to the film, the lenses being mechanically coupled for focusing.
  • food insecurity — an economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.
  • food processing — transforming raw materials into food
  • foolscap quarto — a book size, 63⁄4 by 81⁄2 inches (foolscap quarto)
  • for a certainty — without doubt
  • force de frappe — a military strike force, esp the independent nuclear strike force of France
  • force the issue — to compel decision on some matter
  • forecastle deck — a partial weather deck on top of a forecastle superstructure; topgallant forecastle.
  • forecastle head — the extreme fore part of a forecastle superstructure.
  • foreign service — a division of the U.S. Department of State or of a foreign office that maintains diplomatic and consular posts and personnel in other countries.
  • forensic expert — an expert in applying scientific, technical or medical knowledge to the purposes of law
  • fork-lift truck — Also called forklift truck, fork truck. a small vehicle with two power-operated prongs at the front that can be slid under heavy loads and then raised for moving and stacking materials in warehouses, shipping depots, etc.
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?