17-letter words containing l, o, e, f
- california privet — a privet, Ligustrum ovalifolium, of the olive family, native to Japan, having glossy, oval leaves and long clusters of white flowers, widely used for hedges in the U.S.
- canarybird flower — a nasturtium, Tropaeolum peregrinum, of Peru, having round, deeply lobed leaves and yellow flowers.
- centrifugal force — In physics, centrifugal force is the force that makes objects move outwards when they are spinning around something or travelling in a curve.
- centripetal force — a force that acts inwards on any body that rotates or moves along a curved path and is directed towards the centre of curvature of the path or the axis of rotation
- choanoflagellates — Plural form of choanoflagellate.
- church of england — The Church of England is the main church in England. It has the Queen as its head and it does not recognize the authority of the Pope.
- clifden nonpareil — a handsome nocturnal moth, Catocala fraxini, that is brown with bluish patches on the hindwings: related to the red underwing
- cloverleaf aerial — a type of aerial, having three or four similar coplanar loops arranged symmetrically around an axis, to which in-phase signals are fed
- coffee-table book — A coffee-table book is a large expensive book with a lot of pictures, which is designed to be looked at rather than to be read properly, and is usually placed where people can see it easily.
- coin of the realm — legal tender.
- coliform bacteria — a large group of bacteria inhabiting the intestinal tract of humans and animals that may cause disease and whose presence in water is an indicator of faecal pollution
- college professor — a lecturer or researcher who works in a college
- complete fracture — a bone fracture in which the bone is split completely across.
- connecting flight — a flight taken from an airport other than that from which the journey began, and which is taken in a different aeroplane from that used for the previous stage of the journey
- consolidated fund — a fund into which tax revenue is paid in order to meet standing charges, esp interest payments on the national debt
- continental drift — Continental drift is the slow movement of the Earth's continents towards and away from each other.
- continental shelf — The continental shelf is the area which forms the edge of a continent, ending in a steep slope to the depths of the ocean.
- contraflow system — a system of traffic lanes whose normal direction is reversed to allow traffic to move during repairs or an accident
- corporal of horse — a noncommissioned rank in the British Household Cavalry above that of sergeant and below that of staff sergeant
- council of europe — an association of European states, established in 1949 to promote unity between its members, defend human rights, and increase social and economic progress
- counter-influence — the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others: He used family influence to get the contract.
- cross of lorraine — a cross with two horizontal bars above and below the midpoint of the vertical bar, the lower longer than the upper
- culture diffusion — the spreading out of culture, culture traits, or a cultural pattern from a central point.
- david copperfield — a novel (1850) by Charles Dickens.
- defamiliarisation — (arts) The representation of objects anew, in a way that we do not recognize, or that changes our reading of them.
- defamiliarization — Art, Literature. a theory and technique, originating in the early 20th century, in which an artistic or literary work presents familiar objects or situations in an unfamiliar way, prolonging the perceptive process and allowing for a fresh perspective.
- defending counsel — a barrister who defends a client in a trial
- denial of service — a deliberate interruption in access to a computer system or network, esp by using multiple computers to generate an unmanageable volume of traffic (distributed denial of service)
- denial-of-service — pertaining to or being an incident in which a computer or computer network is disabled, disrupting access or service: a website hit by a denial-of-service attack; unintentional denial-of-service problems.
- deprofessionalise — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
- deprofessionalize — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
- deucalion's flood — a flood sent by Zeus that wiped out the entire population of the earth, except for Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha
- devil's food cake — a rich chocolate cake
- differential tone — a musical sound sometimes heard when two loud notes are sounded together, lower in pitch than either
- dimethylformamide — a colourless liquid widely used as a solvent and sometimes as a catalyst. Formula: (CH3)2NCHO
- dimethylsulfoxide — DMSO.
- double quatrefoil — a charge having the form of a foil with eight leaves, used especially as the cadency mark of a ninth son.
- double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.
- drained of colour — colourless
- drool-proof paper — (jargon) Documentation that has been obsessively dumbed down, to the point where only a cretin could bear to read it, is said to have succumbed to the "drool-proof paper syndrome" or to have been "written on drool-proof paper". For example, this is an actual quote from Apple Computer's LaserWriter manual: "Do not expose your LaserWriter to open fire or flame."
- drop on the floor — To react to an error condition by silently discarding messages or other valuable data. "The gateway ran out of memory, so it just started dropping packets on the floor." Also frequently used of faulty mail and netnews relay sites that lose messages. See also black hole, bit bucket.
- droplet infection — infection spread by airborne droplets of secretions from the nose, throat, or lungs.
- due course of law — the regular administration of the law, according to which no citizen may be denied his or her legal rights and all laws must conform to fundamental, accepted legal principles, as the right of the accused to confront his or her accusers.
- electrofiltration — Electrofiltration is a separation process in which an electric field is applied across a filter to improve separation.
- electron affinity — a measure of the ability of an atom or molecule to form a negative ion, expressed as the energy released when an electron is attached
- electronic office — integrated computer systems designed to handle office work
- empirical formula — a chemical formula indicating the proportion of each element present in a molecule
- employee benefits — benefits, such as health insurance, pension payments, or childcare, given to employees in addition to their usual salary or wage
- employment office — any of a number of government offices established to collect and supply to the unemployed information about job vacancies and to employers information about availability of prospective workers
- enrolment figures — the numbers of people enrolling at an institution, on a course, etc