17-letter words containing n, e, r, d
- downwardly-mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
- drained of colour — colourless
- dramatis personae — (used with a plural verb) the characters in a play.
- drawn-thread work — ornamental needlework done by drawing threads out of the fabric and using the remaining threads to form lacelike patterns
- dress-down friday — In some companies employees are allowed to wear clothes that are less smart than usual on a Friday. This day is known as a dress-down Friday.
- drink like a fish — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- drink-drive limit — the maximum blood alcohol level permitted for someone driving a vehicle
- drive-by download — an incidence of an unwanted program being automatically downloaded to a computer, often without the user's knowledge
- drive-by shooting — an incident in which a person, building, or vehicle is shot at by someone in a moving vehicle
- droit du seigneur — the supposed right claimable by a feudal lord to have sexual relations with the bride of a vassal on her first night of marriage.
- 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.
- drop one's bundle — several objects or a quantity of material gathered or bound together: a bundle of hay.
- droplet infection — infection spread by airborne droplets of secretions from the nose, throat, or lungs.
- duality principle — the principle that a mathematical duality exists under certain conditions.
- dyer-s--greenweed — woadwaxen.
- dynamic insurance — Dynamic insurance is a type of insurance coverage where the policyholder can choose to increase benefits and premiums by a fixed percentage each year to offset the effects of inflation.
- dynamics analyzer — (language) (DYANA) An early language specialised for vibrational and other dynamic physical systems.
- early closing day — a day on which most shops in a town or area close after lunch
- east grand rapids — a town in W central Michigan, near Grand Rapids.
- eastern orthodoxy — the faith, practice, membership, and government of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
- eastern red cedar — red cedar (def 1).
- eastern tradition — any of the philosophies and teachings that derive from Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and other spiritual traditions of the East
- eastern-red-cedar — Also called eastern red cedar, savin. an American, coniferous tree, Juniperus virginiana, yielding a fragrant, reddish wood used for making lead pencils, etc.
- edgar watson howe — E(dgar) W(atson) 1853–1937, U.S. novelist and editor.
- electrified fence — a barrier that uses electric shocks to deter animals or people from crossing a boundary
- electrodeposition — The deposition of a metal on a cathode during electrolysis; used as a method of purification.
- emergency landing — an occasion when a place is forced to land: for example, because of a mechanical fault, bad weather, terrorism, etc.
- emissions trading — the buying and selling of allowances for pollutant emissions
- ends of the earth — remote regions
- enforcement order — an order by a court to force a person or organization to comply with a regulation or law
- enlarged prostate — disorder of male reproductive gland
- error of judgment — a wrong or bad decision
- ethernet meltdown — A network meltdown on Ethernet.
- ethinyloestradiol — Alternative form of ethinylestradiol.
- european standard — a specification to be used as a consistent rule or guideline in the manufacture or selling of a certain product or service traded within Europe
- examination board — an organization that sets and corrects exams
- exception handler — Special code which is called when an exception occurs during the execution of a program. If the programmer does not provide a handler for a given exception, a built-in system exception handler will usually be called resulting in abortion of the program run and some kind of error indication being returned to the user. Examples of exception handler mechanisms are Unix's signal calls and Lisp's catch and throw.
- export department — the department of a business concerned with the export of the business's goods or services
- export-orientated — (of an industry, company, etc) mainly concerned with the export of goods or services
- extraordinariness — The property of being extraordinary.
- extraordinary ray — the plane-polarized ray of light that does not obey the laws of refraction in a doubly refracting crystal
- facts and figures — details; precise information
- fade in (or out) — to appear or cause to appear (or disappear) gradually; make or become more (or less) distinct
- faint-heartedness — lack of courage
- fairness doctrine — a policy mandated by the Federal Communications Commission, requiring radio and television stations to grant equal time to a political candidate, group, etc., to present an opposing viewpoint to one already aired.
- falkland islander — a person from the Falkland Islands
- fall on deaf ears — the organ of hearing and equilibrium in vertebrates, in humans consisting of an external ear that gathers sound vibrations, a middle ear in which the vibrations resonate against the tympanic membrane, and a fluid-filled internal ear that maintains balance and that conducts the tympanic vibrations to the auditory nerve, which transmits them as impulses to the brain.
- fancy dress party — a party at which the guests wear fancy dress
- fear and loathing — (Hunter S. Thompson) A state inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards that are totally brain-damaged but ubiquitous - Intel 8086s, COBOL, EBCDIC, or any IBM machine except the Rios (also known as the RS/6000).
- feathered friends — Birds are sometimes referred to as our feathered friends.