18-letter words containing f, u, c
- immunofluorescence — any of various techniques for detecting an antigen or antibody in a sample by coupling its specifically interactive antibody or antigen to a fluorescent compound, mixing with the sample, and observing the reaction under an ultraviolet-light microscope.
- infectious disease — illness spread by person to person
- influence peddling — the use of power or influence on someone else's behalf in return for money or favours
- isthmus of corinth — a narrow strip of land between the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf: crossed by the Corinth Canal making navigation possible between the gulfs
- laugh out of court — to express mirth, pleasure, derision, or nervousness with an audible, vocal expulsion of air from the lungs that can range from a loud burst of sound to a series of quiet chuckles and is usually accompanied by characteristic facial and bodily movements.
- lean manufacturing — efficiency in the production of goods
- lord chief justice — the presiding judge of Britain's High Court of Justice, the superior court of record for both criminal and civil cases.
- malicious mischief — willful destruction of personal property motivated by ill will or resentment toward its owner or possessor.
- manufactured goods — products made by machine
- manufacturing base — the manufacturing industries of an area or a country considered as a unit and a constituent part of the economy
- medium of exchange — anything generally accepted as representing a standard of value and exchangeable for goods or services.
- much of a muchness — very similar
- multiflow computer — (company) A now-defunct computer company, best known for its work in Very Long Instruction Word processors. Address: New Haven, Conn. USA.
- multifunctionality — The condition of being multifunctional.
- neural tube defect — any of a group of congenital abnormalities involving the brain and spinal cord, including spina bifida and meningocele, caused by failure of the neural tube to close properly during embryonic development.
- no-fault insurance — Also called no-fault insurance. a form of automobile insurance designed to enable the policyholder in case of an accident to collect a certain basic compensation promptly for economic loss from his or her own insurance company without determination of liability.
- nursery facilities — places where young children are looked after
- oil of catechumens — holy oil used in baptism, the ordination of a cleric, the coronation of a sovereign, or in the consecration of a church.
- out of circulation — If someone is out of circulation, they do not appear in public or at social gatherings for a period of time. You can also say that someone is out of circulation when they are in prison.
- out of whole cloth — comprising the full quantity, amount, extent, number, etc., without diminution or exception; entire, full, or total: He ate the whole pie. They ran the whole distance.
- par for the course — an equality in value or standing; a level of equality: The gains and the losses are on a par.
- particulate filter — A particulate filter is a filter to remove particles that are present the air, for example in the exhaust of a diesel engine.
- perceptual defence — the process by which it is thought that certain stimuli are either not perceived or are distorted due to their offensive, unpleasant, or threatening nature
- percussion flaking — a method of forming a flint tool by striking flakes from a stone core with another stone or a piece of bone or wood.
- perfect continuous — perfect progressive.
- piecewise function — a function whose definition changes depending on the value of the independent variable
- prefect of studies — a senior master in a Jesuit school or college
- product life cycle — the four stages (introduction, growth, maturity, and decline) into one of which the sales of a product fall during its market life
- provably difficult — The set or property of problems for which it can be proven that no polynomial-time algorithm exists, only exponential-time algorithms.
- purchasing officer — the member of staff in an organization who is responsible for buying goods or products
- put a bold face on — to seem bold or confident about
- quality of service — (communications, networking) (QoS) The performance properties of a network service, possibly including throughput, transit delay, priority. Some protocols allow packets or streams to include QoS requirements.
- quantum efficiency — the number of electrons released by a photocell per photon of incident radiation of a given energy
- quarterlife crisis — a crisis that may be experienced in one's twenties, involving anxiety over the direction and quality of one's life
- quick off the mark — If you are quick off the mark, you are quick to understand or respond to something. If you are slow off the mark, you are slow to understand or respond to something.
- recruiting officer — a person whose job is to recruit staff, esp on behalf of the military
- recursive function — a function defined in terms of the repeated application of a number of simpler functions to their own values, by specifying a base clause and a recursion formula
- reference counting — (programming) A garbage collection technique where each memory cell contains a count of the number of other cells which point to it. If this count reaches zero the cell is freed and its pointers to other cells are followed to decrement their counts, and so on recursively. This technique cannot cope with circular data structures. Cells in such structures refer (indirectly) to themselves and so will never have a zero reference count. This means they would never be reclaimed, even when there are no references from outside the structure.
- relative frequency — the ratio of the number of times an event occurs to the number of occasions on which it might occur in the same period.
- reproduction proof — repro proof.
- sampling frequency — sample rate
- scruff of the neck — If someone takes you by the scruff of the neck, they take hold of the back of your neck or collar suddenly and roughly.
- security of tenure — (in Britain) the right of a tenant to continue to occupy a dwelling or site unless the landlord obtains a court order for possession of the property or termination of the tenancy agreement
- selenium rectifier — a rectifier consisting of laminated plates of metal, usually iron, that have been coated with selenium on one side, with rectification taking place because the flow of electrons from the conductive metal to the selenium occurs more readily than the flow in the opposite direction.
- self-actualization — the achievement of one's full potential through creativity, independence, spontaneity, and a grasp of the real world.
- self-instructional — pertaining to or constituting learning materials and conditions arranged so that students can proceed to learn on their own with little or no supervision.
- self-justification — the act or fact of justifying oneself, especially of offering excessive reasons, explanations, excuses, etc., for an act, thought, or the like.
- self-preoccupation — the state of being preoccupied.
- sequence of tenses — the sequence according to which the tense of a subordinate verb in a sentence is determined by the tense of the principal verb, as in I believe he is lying, I believed he was lying, etc
- shrubby cinquefoil — a small shrub, Potentilla fruticosa, of the rose family, native to the Northern temperate region, having pinnate leaves and numerous, showy, bright-yellow flowers.