18-letter words containing f, s
- dangerous offender — an offender who is deemed by a court of law to be likely to engage in further violent conduct, and who thus becomes eligible for an indefinite prison sentence
- data flow analysis — (programming) A process to discover the dependencies between different data items manipulated by a program. The order of execution in a data driven language is determined solely by the data dependencies. For example, given the equations 1. X = A + B 2. B = 2 + 2 3. A = 3 + 4 a data-flow analysis would find that 2 and 3 must be evaluated before 1. Since there are no data dependencies between 2 and 3, they may be evaluated in any order, including in parallel. This technique is implemented in hardware in some pipelined processors with multiple functional units. It allows instructions to be executed as soon as their inputs are available, independent of the original program order.
- data transfer rate — (communications) (Or "throughput, data rate", "transmission rate") The amount of data transferred in one direction over a link divided by the time taken to transfer it, usually expressed in bits per second (bps), bytes per second (Bps) or baud. The link may be anything from an interface to a hard disk to a radio transmission from a satellite. Where data transfer is not continuous throughout the given time interval, the data transfer rate is thus an average rate that will be lower than the peak rate. The peak or maximum possible rate may itself be lower than the capacity of the communication channel if the channel is shared, or part of the signal is not considered as data, e.g. checksum or routing information. When applied to data rate, the multiplier prefixes "kilo-", "mega-", "giga-", etc. (and their abbreviations, "k", "M", "G", etc.) always denote powers of 1000. For example, 64 kbps is 64,000 bits per second. This contrasts with units of storage where they stand for powers of 1024, e.g. 1 KB = 1024 bytes. The other important characteristic of a channel is its latency. The bandwidth of a channel determines the data transfer rate but is a different characteristic, measured in Hertz. [Relationship?]
- dead man's fingers — a soft coral, Alcyonium digitatum, with long finger-like polyps
- dead-man's fingers — any of various fungi, sponges, plant roots, animal parts, etc., having fingerlike projections and a pale or dull color, as the gray-black woodland fungus Xylaria polymorpha or the whitish spongy gills of a food crab.
- deep-sea fisherman — a person who takes part in deep-sea fishing
- defense calculator — IBM 701
- defensive medicine — the practice by a doctor of ordering extensive, often unnecessary tests in order to minimize liability if accused of negligence
- deficiency disease — any condition, such as pellagra, beriberi, or scurvy, produced by a lack of vitamins or other essential substances
- degrees of freedom — the number of independent variables entering into a statistical measure or frequency distribution
- deliver oneself of — to speak with deliberation or at length
- depth-first search — (algorithm) A graph search algorithm which extends the current path as far as possible before backtracking to the last choice point and trying the next alternative path. Depth-first search may fail to find a solution if it enters a cycle in the graph. This can be avoided if we never extend a path to a node which it already contains. Opposite of breadth first search. See also iterative deepening.
- diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
- dimethyl sulfoxide — DMSO.
- disenfranchisement — to disfranchise.
- disidentifications — Plural form of disidentification.
- distress frequency — a radio frequency band reserved for emergency signals from aircraft or ships in distress.
- distributed eiffel — ["Distributed Eiffel: A Language for Programming Multi-Granular Distributed Objects on the Clouds Operating System", L. Gunaseelan et al, IEEE Conf Comp Langs, 1992].
- division of labour — a system of organizing the manufacture of an article in a series of separate specialized operations, each of which is carried out by a different worker or group of workers
- do oneself justice — If you do yourself justice, you do something as well as you are capable of doing it.
- due process of law — the administration of justice in accordance with established rules and principles
- duty-free shopping — the making of duty-free purchases
- dwarf storage unit — (humour) (DSU) An IBM term for a cupboard.
- dysfunctionalities — Plural form of dysfunctionality.
- economies of scale — Economies of scale are the financial advantages that a company gains when it produces large quantities of products.
- eleanor of castile — 1246–90, Spanish wife of Edward I of England. Eleanor Crosses were erected at each place at which her body rested between Nottingham, where she died, and London, where she is buried
- essence of violets — an alcoholic solution derived from violets, used as perfume
- excess profits tax — a tax on profits exceeding a certain amount
- fall on one's feet — a plural of foot.
- fall-back position — an alternative plan
- fallot's tetralogy — a congenital heart disease in which there are four defects: pulmonary stenosis, enlarged right ventricle, a ventricular septal defect, and an aorta whose origin lies over the septal defect. In babies suffering this disease the defects can be corrected by surgery
- false imprisonment — the unlawful restraint of a person from exercising the right to freedom of movement.
- family-size packet — a packet large enough to be suitable for a family
- fantasy basketball — imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
- far eastern region — former name of Khabarovsk.
- faraday dark space — the dark region between the negative glow and the positive column in a vacuum tube occurring when the pressure is low.
- farewell-to-spring — a slender, showy plant, Clarkia amoena, of the evening primrose family, native to western North America, having satiny, cup-shaped, lilac-crimson or reddish-pink flowers and roundish fruit.
- fascicular cambium — cambium that develops within the vascular bundles, producing secondary xylem and phloem.
- fast-food industry — the industry surrounding fast-food restaurants
- feast of orthodoxy — a solemn festival held on the first Sunday of Lent (Orthodoxy Sunday) commemorating the restoration of the use of icons in the church (a.d. 842) and the triumph over all heresies.
- feather one's nest — one of the horny structures forming the principal covering of birds, consisting typically of a hard, tubular portion attached to the body and tapering into a thinner, stemlike portion bearing a series of slender, barbed processes that interlock to form a flat structure on each side.
- federal funds rate — The federal funds rate is the overnight rate between banks.
- feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
- fehling's solution — a blue solution of copper sulfate, Rochelle salt, and sodium hydroxide, used to test for the presence of a sugar, aldehyde, etc.
- feldenkrais method — a system of gentle movements that promote flexibility, coordination, and self-awareness
- ferdinand schiller — Ferdinand Canning Scott [kan-ing] /ˈkæn ɪŋ/ (Show IPA), 1864–1937, English philosopher in the U.S.
- fermat's last post — (humour) A post to a bug tracker, mailing list or forum in which the author claims to have found a simple fix or workaround for a bug, but never says what it is and never shows up again to explain it (even after others have been puzzling over the bug for years).
- fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
- fibonacci sequence — (mathematics) The infinite sequence of numbers beginning 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ... in which each term is the sum of the two terms preceding it. The ratio of successive Fibonacci terms tends to the golden ratio, namely (1 + sqrt 5)/2.
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.