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17-letter words containing i, l, r

  • flight instrument — any instrument used to indicate the altitude, attitude, airspeed, drift, or direction of an aircraft.
  • floating currency — a currency that is free to fluctuate against other currencies in accordance with market forces
  • floating dry dock — a dock that floats and can be lowered in the water for the entrance of a ship, and then raised for use as a dry dock
  • floppy disk drive — disk drive
  • florentine stitch — a straight stitch worked in a high and low relief pattern to form a variety of zigzag or oblique designs.
  • flowering currant — an ornamental shrub, Ribes sanguineum, growing to 2 to 3 metres (6 to 9ft) in height, with red, crimson, yellow, or white flowers: family Saxifragaceae
  • flowering dogwood — a North American dogwood tree, Cornus florida, having small greenish flowers in the spring, surrounded by white or pink bracts that resemble petals: the state flower and the state tree of Virginia.
  • flowering tobacco — any plant belonging to the genus Nicotiana, of the nightshade family, as N. alata and N. sylvestris, having clusters of fragrant flowers that usually bloom at night, grown as an ornamental.
  • fluid lubrication — lubrication in which bearing surfaces are separated by an oil film sustained by the motion of the parts
  • fluorescent light — a fluorescent lamp in domestic or commercial use; a fluorescent strip
  • fluorescent strip — a fluorescent light in the form of a long strip
  • fluvioterrestrial — (of animals) able to live in rivers and on land
  • folie de grandeur — a delusion of grandeur; megalomania.
  • fore-and-aft sail — any of various sails, as jib-headed sails, gaff sails, lugsails, lateen sails, spritsails, staysails, and jibs, that do not set on yards and whose normal position, when not trimmed, is in a fore-and-aft direction amidships.
  • foreign relations — (used with a singular verb) the field of foreign affairs: an expert in foreign relations.
  • formative element — a morpheme that serves as an affix, not as a base, or root, in word formation.
  • fouquier-tinville — Antoine Quentin [ahn-twan kahn-tan] /ɑ̃ˈtwan kɑ̃ˈtɛ̃/ (Show IPA), 1747?–95, French revolutionist: prosecutor during the Reign of Terror.
  • fra filippo lippi — Lippi, Fra Filippo.
  • fractal dimension — (mathematics)   A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by "measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object. Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object. For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by repeatedly replacing ___ with _/\_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/\_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
  • fractionalization — Separation into parts by fractionalizing.
  • fraternal society — a club or other association, usually of men, having a limited membership and devoted to professional, religious, charitable, or social activities.
  • frederick pollock — Sir Frederick, 1845–1937, English legal scholar and author.
  • frederick william — 1795–1861, king of Prussia 1840–61 (brother of William I of Prussia).
  • freewill offering — a voluntary religious contribution made in addition to what may be expected or required.
  • french provincial — noting, pertaining to, or resembling a style of furnishings and decoration originating in the provinces of France in the 18th century, derived from but less ornate than styles then current in Paris and featuring simply carved wood furniture, often with decorative curved moldings.
  • french revolution — the revolution that began in 1789, overthrew the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons and the system of aristocratic privileges, and ended with Napoleon's overthrow of the Directory and seizure of power in 1799.
  • french somaliland — a former name of Djibouti (def 1).
  • front-line player — a regular player on a sports team or one who plays in the farthest forward position
  • front-wheel drive — a drive system in which engine power is transmitted through the front wheels only.
  • frostbite sailing — the sport of sailing in temperate latitudes during the winter despite cold weather.
  • full linear group — the group of all nonsingular linear transformations mapping a finite-dimensional vector space into itself.
  • functional isomer — any of several structural isomers that have the same molecular formula but with the atoms connected in different ways and therefore falling into different functional groups.
  • funicular railway — a short, very steep railway having two parallel sets of tracks, upon each of which runs a car or train raised or lowered by means of a cable that simultaneously lowers or raises the other car or train in such a way that the two are approximately counterbalanced.
  • furbish lousewort — any plant belonging to the genus Pedicularis, of the figwort family, as the wood betony, formerly supposed to cause lice in sheep feeding on it: one species, P. furbishiae (Furbish lousewort) of parts of Maine and New Brunswick, Canada, having finely toothed leaves and a cluster of yellow flowers, is endangered and was thought to be extinct until specimens were discovered in 1946 and again in 1976.
  • garden heliotrope — the common valerian, Valeriana officinalis, especially when cultivated as an ornamental.
  • garlic mayonnaise — mayonnaise flavoured with garlic
  • gause's principle — the principle that similar species cannot coexist for long in the same ecological niche
  • genealogical tree — family tree.
  • general admission — an admission charge for unreserved seats at a theatrical performance, sports event, etc.
  • general discharge — a discharge from military service of a person who has served honorably but who has not met all the conditions of an honorable discharge.
  • general insurance — insurance (such as house insurance and car insurance) that does not insure someone's life
  • general paralysis — a syphilitic brain disorder characterized by chronic inflammation and degeneration of cerebral tissue resulting in mental and physical deterioration.
  • general sarmiento — a city in E Argentina, a suburb of Buenos Aires.
  • general semantics — a philosophical approach to language, developed by Alfred Korzybski, exploring the relationship between the form of language and its use and attempting to improve the capacity to express ideas.
  • generalized other — an individual's internalized impression of societal norms and expectations.
  • genetic algorithm — (GA) An evolutionary algorithm which generates each individual from some encoded form known as a "chromosome" or "genome". Chromosomes are combined or mutated to breed new individuals. "Crossover", the kind of recombination of chromosomes found in sexual reproduction in nature, is often also used in GAs. Here, an offspring's chromosome is created by joining segments choosen alternately from each of two parents' chromosomes which are of fixed length. GAs are useful for multidimensional optimisation problems in which the chromosome can encode the values for the different variables being optimised.
  • geographical mile — nautical mile.
  • geological survey — U.S. Government. a division of the Department of the Interior, created in 1879, that studies the nation's water and mineral resources, makes topographic surveys, and classifies and leases public lands.
  • george whitefield — George, 1714–70, English Methodist evangelist.
  • gestatorial chair — a ceremonial chair on which the pope is carried
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