18-letter words containing l, f, r
- chinese fire drill — a state of chaotic, often clamorous disorder.
- chlorofluorocarbon — Chlorofluorocarbons are the same as CFCs.
- church of scotland — the established church in Scotland, Calvinist in doctrine and Presbyterian in constitution
- colossus of rhodes — a giant bronze statue of Apollo built on Rhodes in about 292–280 bc; destroyed by an earthquake in 225 bc; one of the Seven Wonders of the World
- compliance officer — a specialist, usually a lawyer, employed by a financial group operating in a variety of fields and for multiple clients to ensure that no conflict of interest arises and that all obligations and regulations are complied with
- conditioned reflex — a reflex in which the response (e.g., secretion of saliva in a dog) is occasioned by a secondary stimulus (e.g., the ringing of a bell) repeatedly associated with the primary stimulus (e.g., the sight of meat)
- considered harmful — (programming, humour) A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
- cooling-off period — A cooling-off period is an agreed period of time during which two sides with opposing views try to resolve a dispute before taking any serious action.
- crested flycatcher — any of various tyrant flycatchers (esp. genus Myiarchus) with a prominent crest
- criminal profiling — the analysis of a person's psychological and behavioural characteristics, so as to assess whether they are likely to have committed a crime under investigation
- crocodile-infested — full of crocodiles
- crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
- cultural diffusion — act of diffusing; state of being diffused.
- curvature of field — a monochromatic aberration of a lens or other optical system in which the focal surface is curved, the refracted image of an object oriented perpendicular to the axis of the lens lying on a curved surface rather than in a plane perpendicular to the axis.
- dead-letter office — an office where undeliverable letters were taken for storage
- declaration of war — a formal statement made by one country to another that a state of war now exists between them
- defense calculator — IBM 701
- deferred liability — income received in advance and carried forward as a liability until the associated goods, services, or benefits are delivered
- deliver oneself of — to speak with deliberation or at length
- departure platform — a raised area at a railway station from which passengers can board trains prior to their departing
- diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
- 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
- dried-fruit beetle — a small beetle, Carpophilus hemipterus, of worldwide distribution, that infests ripe, dried, and fermenting fruits, especially figs and dates.
- due process of law — the administration of justice in accordance with established rules and principles
- 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
- electrical failure — an instance when an electricity supply stops working
- electronic warfare — the military use of electronics to prevent or reduce an enemy's effective use and to protect friendly use of electromagnetic radiation equipment
- fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
- 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-tree theory — a theory that describes language change in terms of genetically related languages developing in successive splits from a common parent language, such as Indo-European, as depicted by a family tree diagram.
- 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.
- farm the long acre — to graze cows on the verge of a road
- farmer in the dell — a game, accompanied by a song with several verses, in which one person, designated as the farmer, occupies the center of a circle of persons and is joined in the circle by other players designated as wife, child, nurse, cat, rat, and cheese, these then leaving the circle in order except for the one designated as cheese, who is left standing alone in the circle at the end.
- farmer-labor party — a political party in Minnesota, founded in 1920 and merged with the Democratic Party in 1944.
- fascicular cambium — cambium that develops within the vascular bundles, producing secondary xylem and phloem.
- federal funds rate — The federal funds rate is the overnight rate between banks.
- federal government — pertaining to or of the nature of a union of states under a central government distinct from the individual governments of the separate states, as in federal government; federal system.
- feldenkrais method — a system of gentle movements that promote flexibility, coordination, and self-awareness
- ferdinand magellan — Ferdinand, c1480–1521, Portuguese navigator: discoverer of the Straits of Magellan 1520 and the Philippines 1521.
- 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.
- ferrite-rod aerial — a type of aerial, normally used in radio reception, consisting of a small coil of wire mounted on a ferrite core, the coil serving as a tuning inductance
- fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
- filchner ice shelf — an ice barrier in Antarctica, in the SE Weddell Sea, bordered on the W by Berkner Island.
- file control block — (operating system) (FCB) An MS-DOS data structure that stores information about an open file. The number of FCBs is configured in CONFIG.SYS with a command FCBS=x,y where x (between 1 and 255 inclusive, default 4) specifies the number of file control blocks to allocate and therefore the number of files that MS-DOS can have open at one time. y (not needed from DOS 5.0 onward) specifies the number of files to be closed automatically if all x are in use.
- financial services — A company or organization that provides financial services is able to help you do things such as make investments or buy a pension or mortgage.