19-letter words containing f, s, t, a
- interesterification — transesterification.
- interfacial tension — the surface tension at the interface of two liquids.
- isle of shoals boat — a sailing boat formerly used in Ipswich Bay, Massachusetts, rigged with two spritsails or gaff sails.
- islet of langerhans — any of several masses of endocrine cells in the pancreas that secrete insulin, somatostatin, and glucagon.
- isthmus of san blas — the narrowest part of the Isthmus of Panama. Width: about 50 km (30 miles)
- italian east africa — a former Italian territory in E Africa, formed in 1936 by the merging of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland with newly conquered Ethiopia: taken by the British Imperial forces 1941.
- jacques montgolfier — Jacques Étienne [zhahk ey-tyen] /ʒɑk eɪˈtyɛn/ (Show IPA), 1745–99, and his brother Joseph Michel [zhaw-zef mee-shel] /ʒɔˈzɛf miˈʃɛl/ (Show IPA) 1740–1810, French aeronauts: inventors of the first practical balloon 1783.
- joseph of arimathea — a wealthy disciple who provided a tomb for Jesus' body: Matt. 27:57-60
- juan de fuca strait — strait between Vancouver Island and NW Wash.: c. 100 mi (161 km) long
- ladies-of-the-night — plural of lady-of-the-night.
- line-of-battle ship — ship of the line.
- logical shift right — logical shift
- loss-of-containment — Loss-of-containment happens when a fluid which is usually contained somewhere escapes from that place.
- love at first sight — instant romantic attraction to sb
- mail transfer agent — Message Transfer Agent
- make the best of it — cope
- manned space flight — space travel in vehicles with a human crew
- mary wollstonecraft — Mary (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin) 1759–97, English author and feminist (mother of Mary Shelley).
- 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.
- master of the horse — (in England) the third official of the royal household
- master of the rolls — (in England and Wales) the judge who presides over the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) and who was formerly Keeper of the Records at the Public Record Office
- means of production — resources: equipment, workers
- mid-autumn festival — a Chinese festival that is held to celebrate the end of the summer harvest, when the crops have been gathered.
- miracle of st. mark — a painting (1548) by Tintoretto.
- missing fundamental — a tone, not present in the sound received by the ear, whose pitch is that of the difference between the two tones that are sounded
- most favored nation — a nation to which privileges of trade are extended under a government policy of giving the same privileges to all nations that are given to any one of them, sometimes depending on whether certain conditions, as of reciprocity, are met
- most-favored-nation — of or relating to the status, treatment, terms, etc., that are embodied in or conferred by a most-favored-nation clause.
- mother-of-thousands — strawberry geranium.
- nasty piece of work — malicious person
- neats vs. scruffies — (artificial intelligence, jargon) The label used to refer to one of the continuing holy wars in artificial intelligence research. This conflict tangles together two separate issues. One is the relationship between human reasoning and AI; "neats" tend to try to build systems that "reason" in some way identifiably similar to the way humans report themselves as doing, while "scruffies" profess not to care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the least as long as it works. More importantly, neats tend to believe that logic is king, while scruffies favour looser, more ad-hoc methods driven by empirical knowledge. To a neat, scruffy methods appear promiscuous, successful only by accident and not productive of insights about how intelligence actually works; to a scruffy, neat methods appear to be hung up on formalism and irrelevant to the hard-to-capture "common sense" of living intelligences.
- neufchâtel (cheese) — a soft white cheese prepared from whole milk or skim milk and eaten fresh or cured
- non-transferability — to convey or remove from one place, person, etc., to another: He transferred the package from one hand to the other.
- nordrhein-westfalen — German name of North Rhine-Westphalia.
- 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 first name terms — If two people are on first-name terms, they know each other well enough to call each other by their first names, rather than having to use a more formal title.
- open the floodgates — If events open the floodgates to something, they make it possible for that thing to happen much more often or much more seriously than before.
- pancreatic fibrosis — cystic fibrosis.
- parting of the ways — When there is a parting of the ways, two or more people or groups of people stop working together or travelling together.
- paschen-back effect — a splitting of spectral lines observed when the source of a radiation is subjected to a strong magnetic field, caused when the vectors associated with the spin and orbital angular momentum exhibit individual rather than common precession.
- performance targets — the expected or predicted success level of an individual, company or organization
- persian gulf states — group of Arab sheikdoms along the Persian Gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, & United Arab Emirates
- personal watercraft — a jet-propelled boat ridden like a motorcycle.
- 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.
- pirates of penzance — an operetta (1879) by Sir William S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan.
- pistol-handle knife — a table knife, especially of the 18th century, having a slightly curved handle resembling the grip of a flintlock pistol.
- plastic deformation — In plastic deformation a material changes shape when a stress is applied to it and does not go back to its original state when the stress is removed.
- play fast and loose — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- play footsie (with) — to touch feet or rub knees (with) in a caressing way, as under the table
- post-and-rail fence — a fence constructed of upright wooden posts with horizontal timber slotted through it