12-letter words containing f, s
- austin friar — one of the Hermits of St. Augustine.
- axis of evil — North Korea, Iraq, and Iran when considered together as a perceived threat to world stability
- bairnsfather — Bruce. 1888–1959, British cartoonist, born in India: best known for his cartoons of the war in the trenches during World War I
- bashkirtseff — Marie, original name Marya Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva. 1858–84, Russian painter and diarist who wrote in French, noted esp for her Journal (1887)
- basification — the process of making something alkaline
- bastard file — a file of the commercial grade of coarseness between coarse and second-cut.
- battlefields — Plural form of battlefield.
- battlefronts — Plural form of battlefront.
- beaconsfield — a town in SE England, in Buckinghamshire. Pop: 12 292 (2001)
- beaufort sea — part of the Arctic Ocean off the N coast of North America
- beautifulest — (dated) Most beautiful; more beautiful than anyone or anything else.
- beaver falls — a city in W Pennsylvania.
- bed of nails — a situation or position of extreme difficulty
- bed of roses — If you say that a situation is not a bed of roses, you mean that it is not as pleasant as it seems, and that there are some unpleasant aspects to it.
- bedfordshire — a county of S central England, administered since 2009 by the unitary authorities of Bedford and Central Bedfordshire: mainly low-lying, with the Chiltern Hills in the south: the geographical county includes Luton, which became a separate unitary authority in 1997. Area (excluding Luton): 1192 sq km (460 sq miles)
- beef sausage — a sausage made of beef rather than pork
- bellows fish — snipefish.
- benefactress — a female benefactor
- bichon frise — a small white poodle-like dog of European origin, with a silky, loosely curling coat
- bill of sale — a deed transferring personal property, either outright or as security for a loan or debt
- bindle stiff — a hobo.
- bit of skirt — a girl or woman
- bit stuffing — (protocol) A protocol which guarantees the receiver of synchronous data can recover the sender's clock. When the data stream sent contains a large number of adjacent bits which cause no transition of the signal, the receiver cannot adjust its clock to maintain proper synchronised reception. To eliminate the possibility of such a pathological case, when a preset number of transitionless bits have been transmitted, a bit which does cause a transition is "stuffed" (transmitted) by the sender. The receiver follows the same protocol and removes the stuffed bit after the specified number of transitionless bits, but can use the stuffed bit to recover the sender's clock. The advantage of bit stuffing is that only a bit (not a byte) is inserted in the data stream, and that only when the content of the data stream fails to provide a timing signal to the receiver. Thus very nearly 100% of the bits transported are useful data. In contrast, asynchronous transmission of data "throws away" a start bit and one or more stop bits for each data byte sent.
- black forest — wooded mountain region in SW Germany
- blast effect — the damage caused by the force of an explosive blast
- blissfulness — full of, abounding in, enjoying, or conferring bliss.
- blue catfish — a large freshwater catfish, Ictalurus furcatus, that is a popular food fish in the states of the Mississippi River valley.
- bluesnarfing — the practice of using one Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone to steal contact details, ring tones, images, etc from another
- body fascism — intolerance of those whose bodies do not conform to a particular view of what is desirable
- book of odes — a collection of 305 poems compiled in the 6th century b.c. by Confucius.
- bosom friend — an intimate friend
- bounce flash — a flash lamp designed to produce a bounced flash.
- bourgeoisify — to convert to a bourgeois attitude or appearance
- boyoma falls — a series of seven cataracts in the NE Democratic Republic of Congo, on the upper River Congo: forms an unnavigable stretch of 90 km (56 miles), which falls 60 m (200 ft)
- brassfounder — a person who makes things from brass
- brush flower — a flower or inflorescence with numerous long stamens, usually pollinated by birds or bats
- buffalo fish — any of a genus (Ictiobus) of large, humpbacked, freshwater sucker fishes found in North America
- buffel grass — grass used for pasture in Africa, India, and Australia
- buffer state — A buffer state is a peaceful country situated between two or more larger hostile countries.
- buffer stock — a stock of a commodity built up by a government or trade organization with the object of using it to stabilize prices
- bull mastiff — a large powerful breed of dog with a short usually fawn or brindle coat, developed by crossing the bulldog with the mastiff
- burkina faso — an inland republic in W Africa: dominated by Mossi kingdoms (10th–19th centuries); French protectorate established in 1896; became an independent republic in 1960; consists mainly of a flat savanna plateau. Official language: French; Mossi and other African languages also widely spoken. Religion: mostly animist, with a large Muslim minority. Currency: franc. Capital: Ouagadougou. Pop: 17 812 961 (2013 est). Area: 273 200 sq km (105 900 sq miles)
- bushfighting — fighting in the bush
- busted flush — a poker hand with four cards of the same suit that fails to form a flush when the final card is dealt
- by reason of — If one thing happens by reason of another, it happens because of it.
- cafe society — people, esp intellectuals and artists who meet in cafés
- can of worms — a complicated problem
- candlefishes — Plural form of candlefish.
- card surfing — a form of cash-card fraud in which one person watches another using a cash dispenser, notes his or her personal identification number, and, after an accomplice has stolen the card, uses the card to withdraw cash
- cardan shaft — A cardan shaft or cardan drive is a propeller shaft fitted with universal joints at each end.