15-letter words containing i, f, e, r
- purified cotton — bleached and sterilized cotton from which the gross impurities, such as the seeds and waxy matter, have been removed: used for surgical dressings, tampons, etc
- purslane family — the plant family Portulacaceae, characterized by chiefly herbaceous plants having simple, often fleshy leaves, sometimes showy flowers, and capsular fruit, and including bitterroot, purslane, red maids, rose moss, and spring beauty.
- quadric surface — a three-dimensional surface whose equation is a quadratic equation.
- quarantine flag — a yellow flag, designating the letter Q in the International Code of Signals: flown by itself to signify that a ship has no disease on board and requests a pratique, or flown with another flag to signify that there is disease on board ship.
- quarterfinalist — a participant in a quarterfinal contest.
- radio frequency — the frequency of the transmitting waves of a given radio message or broadcast.
- ranfurly shield — (in New Zealand) the premier rugby trophy, competed for annually by provincial teams
- ray of sunshine — beam of sunlight
- ray-finned fish — any of various bony fishes of the subclass Actinopterygii, having strong slender rays, excluding the coelacanth and lungfish.
- rayside-balfour — a town in S Ontario, in S Canada.
- re-notification — a formal notifying or informing.
- read oneself in — to assume possession of a benefice by publicly reading the Thirty-nine Articles
- ready-furnished — (of a room, house, office, etc) fitted with furniture before being rented or sold
- reafforestation — replanting with trees
- reality fiction — a satirical parody of a reality TV show
- recertification — the act of certifying.
- reconfiguration — to change the shape or formation of; remodel; restructure.
- redfin pickerel — See under pickerel (def 1).
- redial facility — a means of dialling a number again by pressing a button
- refamiliarizing — to make (onself or another) well-acquainted or conversant with something.
- reference point — a point used to find or describe the location of something
- reference strip — a strip of film used to help calculate and monitor the exposing and processing of photographs
- refined fortran — (RF) Similar to Refined C. Research implementations only. "Refined Fortran: Another Sequential Language for Parallel Programming," H.G. Dietz et al, Proc 1986 Intl Conf Parallel Proc, pp.184-191.
- refinery revamp — A refinery revamp is a change in the technology or processes used in a refinery.
- reflexivization — to make (a verb or pronoun) reflexive.
- refortification — the act or state of being refortified
- refuelling stop — a stop made so that fresh fuel can be supplied (to an aircraft, vehicle, etc)
- refugee capital — money from abroad invested, esp for a short term, in the country offering the highest interest rate
- refuse disposal — the act of disposing of rubbish and waste
- register office — building where civil records are kept
- registry office — a government office and depository in which records and civil registers are kept and civil marriages performed.
- reign of terror — a period of the French Revolution, from about March, 1793, to July, 1794, during which many persons were ruthlessly executed by the ruling faction.
- relapsing fever — one of a group of fevers characterized by relapses, occurring in many tropical countries, and caused by several species of spirochetes transmitted by several species of lice and ticks.
- relief supplies — food, water, medication, clothes, etc given to people in need, esp in disaster areas
- relief-printing — prominence, distinctness, or vividness due to contrast.
- relieve oneself — to ease or alleviate (pain, distress, anxiety, need, etc.).
- religion of chi — /ki:/ [Case Western Reserve University] Yet another hackish parody religion (see also Church of the SubGenius, Discordianism). In the mid-70s, the canonical "Introduction to Programming" courses at CWRU were taught in ALGOL, and student exercises were punched on cards and run on a Univac 1108 system using a homebrew operating system named CHI. The religion had no doctrines and but one ritual: whenever the worshipper noted that a digital clock read 11:08, he or she would recite the phrase "It is 11:08; ABS, ALPHABETIC, ARCSIN, ARCCOS, ARCTAN." The last five words were the first five functions in the appropriate chapter of the ALGOL manual; note the special pronunciations /obz/ and /ark'sin/ rather than the more common /ahbz/ and /ark'si:n/. Using an alarm clock to warn of 11:08's arrival was considered harmful.
- requalification — a quality, accomplishment, etc., that fits a person for some function, office, or the like.
- reserve officer — a noncareer commissioned officer in a military reserve unit who has served on active duty and who may be recalled to active service during an emergency.
- respecification — the act of specifying.
- retirement fund — A retirement fund is a special fund which people pay money into so that, when they retire from their job, they will receive money regularly as a pension.
- retroreflection — of or relating to a surface, material, or device (retroreflector) that reflects light or other radiation back to its source; reflective.
- retroreflective — of or relating to a surface, material, or device (retroreflector) that reflects light or other radiation back to its source; reflective.
- revenue officer — a government agent responsible for administering and collecting taxes
- reversing falls — a series of rapids in the Saint John River, New Brunswick, Canada, the flow of which regularly reverses itself owing to the force an incoming tide
- reworked fossil — a fossil eroded from sediment and redeposited in younger sediment
- rheinland-pfalz — German name of Rhineland-Palatinate.
- rheumatic fever — a serious disease, associated with streptococcal infections, usually affecting children, characterized by fever, swelling and pain in the joints, sore throat, and cardiac involvement.
- rhodesian front — the governing party in Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia) 1962–78
- ride for a fall — to sit on and manage a horse or other animal in motion; be carried on the back of an animal.