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25-letter words containing n, a, f, o

  • defense trade regulations — (legal)   The U.S. law governening munitions export and defense technology (F-16s, TOW missiles and cryptology). According to the U.S. (and Canada) cryptography is a munition and people who export it can be charged as though they were exporting bombs or state secrets. People have been. See also EFF.
  • defined contribution plan — A defined contribution plan is a type of pension plan that specifies the annual contribution that the employer will pay on behalf of each plan participant.
  • definite relative pronoun — a relative pronoun that refers to an antecedent, as who in It was I who told you.
  • department of agriculture — the department of the U.S. federal government that institutes and administers all federal programs dealing with agriculture. Abbreviation: USDA.
  • discrete cosine transform — (mathematics)   (DCT) A technique for expressing a waveform as a weighted sum of cosines. The DCT is central to many kinds of signal processing, especially video compression. Given data A(i), where i is an integer in the range 0 to N-1, the forward DCT (which would be used e.g. by an encoder) is: B(k) = sum A(i) cos((pi k/N) (2 i + 1)/2) i=0 to N-1 B(k) is defined for all values of the frequency-space variable k, but we only care about integer k in the range 0 to N-1. The inverse DCT (which would be used e.g. by a decoder) is: AA(i)= sum B(k) (2-delta(k-0)) cos((pi k/N)(2 i + 1)/2) k=0 to N-1 where delta(k) is the Kronecker delta. The main difference between this and a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) is that the DFT traditionally assumes that the data A(i) is periodically continued with a period of N, whereas the DCT assumes that the data is continued with its mirror image, then periodically continued with a period of 2N. Mathematically, this transform pair is exact, i.e. AA(i) == A(i), resulting in lossless coding; only when some of the coefficients are approximated does compression occur. There exist fast DCT algorithms in analogy to the Fast Fourier Transform.
  • do-it-yourself enthusiast — an enthusiast of the hobby or process of constructing and repairing things by yourself
  • double wingback formation — an offensive formation in which two backs line up at opposite ends of the backfield about one yard outside of the ends and about one yard behind the line of scrimmage.
  • dual tone multi frequency — (communications)   (DTMF, or "touch-tone") A method used by the telephone system to communicate the keys pressed when dialling. Pressing a key on the phone's keypad generates two simultaneous tones, one for the row and one for the column. These are decoded by the exchange to determine which key was pressed.
  • electronic funds transfer — (application, communications)   (EFT, EFTS, - system) Transfer of money initiated through electronic terminal, automated teller machine, computer, telephone, or magnetic tape. In the late 1990s, this increasingly includes transfer initiated via the web. The term also applies to credit card and automated bill payments.
  • equine infectious anaemia — a viral disease of horses, donkeys, and mules characterized by fever, anaemia, jaundice, depression, and weight loss
  • european court of justice — law: international court
  • examination for discovery — a pretrial meeting to disclose evidence that will be presented later
  • extended backus-naur form — (language)   Any variation on the basic Backus-Naur Form (BNF) meta-syntax notation with (some of) the following additional constructs: square brackets "[..]" surrounding optional items, suffix "*" for Kleene closure (a sequence of zero or more of an item), suffix "+" for one or more of an item, curly brackets enclosing a list of alternatives, and super/subscripts indicating between n and m occurrences. All these constructs can be expressed in plain BNF using extra productions and have been added for readability and succinctness.
  • extended fortran language — (EFL) A Fortran preprocessor to provide structured programming constructs much like C. EFL is a descendant of RATFOR. It is written in C.
  • fallacy of many questions — the rhetorical trick of asking a question that cannot be answered without admitting a presupposition that may be false, as have you stopped beating your wife?
  • federal bureau of prisons — the agency of the US Department of Justice responsible for the administration of prisons
  • female genital mutilation — the practice observed in some cultures of removing part or all of a woman's or girl's genitalia
  • fifth generation language — (language, artificial intelligence)   A myth the Japanese spent a lot of money on. In about 1982, MITI decided it would spend ten years and a lot of money applying artificial intelligence to programming, thus solving the software crisis. The project spent its money and its ten years and in 1992 closed down with a wimper.
  • first and second manassas — two battles fought at Manassas Junction near a stream named Bull Run, during the American Civil War (July, 1861 and August, 1862), in both of which the Federal army was routed by the Confederates
  • first generation computer — (architecture)   A prototype computer based on vacuum tubes and other esoteric technologies. Chronologically, any computer designed before the mid-1950s. Examples include Howard Aiken's Mark 1 (1944), Maunchly and Eckert's ENIAC (1946), and the IAS computer.
  • first generation language — Raw machine code. When computers were first "programmed" from an input device, rather than by being rewired, they were fed input in the form of numbers, which they then interpreted as commands. This was really low level, and a program fragment might look like "010307 010307". Almost no one programs in machine language anymore, because translators are nearly trivial to write.
  • five nations championship — a former annual competition involving the national sides of England, France, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; replaced by the Six Nations Championship in 2000
  • flexible spending account — an account to which an employee contributes a portion of earnings to pay for certain expenses such as medical and dependent care: contributions are exempt from payroll taxes. Abbreviation: FSA.
  • food and beverage manager — A food and beverage manager is responsible for providing food and drink for the guests at a hotel or restaurant.
  • force one's way somewhere — If you force your way through or into somewhere, you have to push or break things that are in your way in order to get there.
  • franked investment income — (formerly) dividends from one UK company received by another on which the paying company had paid corporation tax so that the receiving company had no corporation tax to pay: discontinued from 1999
  • free central placentation — a type of placenta structure in an ovary, in which the ovules cluster freely around a columnlike central placenta which is attached at the base of the ovary
  • free open-source software — free software
  • frequently asked question — (convention)   (FAQ, or rarely FAQL, FAQ list) A document provided for many Usenet newsgroups (and, more recently, web services) which attempts to answer questions which new readers often ask. These are maintained by volunteers and posted regularly to the newsgroup. You should always consult the FAQ list for a group before posting to it in case your question or point is common knowledge. The collection of all FAQ lists is one of the most precious and remarkable resources on the Internet. It contains a huge wealth of up-to-date expert knowledge on many subjects of common interest. Accuracy of the information is greatly assisted by its frequent exposure to criticism by an interested, and occasionally well-informed, audience (the readers of the relevant newsgroup). The main FTP archive for FAQs is on a computer called RTFM at MIT, where they can be accessed either by group or by hierarchy. There is another archive at Imperial College, London, UK and a web archive in Ohio, USA. The FAQs are also posted to Usenet newsgroups: news:comp.answers, news:news.answers and news:alt.answers.
  • functional representation — representation in a governing body on the basis of social class or occupation.
  • further education college — (in Britain) an establishment that offers formal education beyond school and which is not a university or polytechnic
  • gas desulfurization plant — A gas desulfurization plant is a place with equipment that removes sulfur dioxide from flue gas before it is released into the atmosphere.
  • general accounting office — an independent auditing and accounting agency that assists Congress and government departments and agencies and settles claims for the federal government. Abbreviation: GAO.
  • genetically modified food — a food that contains ingredients made from genetically modified plants or animals
  • get out of someone's face — the front part of the head, from the forehead to the chin.
  • go through fire and water — to undergo great difficulties or dangers
  • graham's law of diffusion — the principle that at a given temperature and pressure the rate of diffusion of a gas is inversely proportional to the square root of its density.
  • graphics interface format — (spelling)   You mean "Graphics Interchange Format".
  • greatest-integer function — the function that assigns to each real number the greatest integer less than or equal to the number. Symbol: [ x ].
  • hailsham of st marylebone — Baron, title of Quintin (McGarel) Hogg (ˈkwɪntɪn). 1907–2001, British Conservative politician; Lord Chancellor (1970–74; 1979–87). He renounced his viscountcy in 1963 when he made an unsuccessful bid for the Conservative Party leadership; he became a life peer in 1970
  • hardening of the arteries — medical condition: arteriosclerosis
  • have an eye for something — If you say that someone has an eye for something, you mean that they are good at noticing it or making judgments about it.
  • have bats in one's belfry — any of numerous flying mammals of the order Chiroptera, of worldwide distribution in tropical and temperate regions, having modified forelimbs that serve as wings and are covered with a membranous skin extending to the hind limbs.
  • high voltage differential — (hardware)   (HVD) Differential SCSI scheme that has been in use for years. The terminators run on 5 Volts DC. See also LVD.
  • homothetic transformation — similarity transformation (def 1).
  • homothetic-transformation — Also called homothetic transformation. a mapping of a set by which each element in the set is mapped into a positive constant multiple of itself, the same constant being used for all elements.
  • house of the seven gables — a novel (1851) by Hawthorne.
  • human-factors engineering — an applied science that coordinates the design of devices, systems, and physical working conditions with the capacities and requirements of the worker.
  • in (or out of) character — consistent with (or inconsistent with) the role or general character
  • in (or out of) mothballs — put into (or taken from) a condition of being stored or in reserve
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