17-letter words containing n, o, r, e, s, i
- dramatis personae — (used with a plural verb) the characters in a play.
- 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.
- 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.
- early closing day — a day on which most shops in a town or area close after lunch
- eastern townships — an area of central Canada, in S Quebec: consists of 11 townships south of the St Lawrence
- eastern tradition — any of the philosophies and teachings that derive from Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and other spiritual traditions of the East
- electric constant — the permittivity of free space, which has the value 8.854 187 × 10–12 farad per metre
- electroanesthesia — Anesthesia induced by cranial electrotherapy stimulation.
- electroconvulsive — Of or relating to the treatment of mental illness by the application of electric shocks to the brain.
- electrodeposition — The deposition of a metal on a cathode during electrolysis; used as a method of purification.
- emergency rations — food and drink that is designated for use in an emergency: for example, in a famine, after a plane crash, when hill-walkers or mountaineers are stranded, etc.
- emergency session — an urgent meeting held by parliament, ministers, etc. to discuss what measures should be taken to deal with an emergency
- emission spectrum — the continuous spectrum or pattern of bright lines or bands seen when the electromagnetic radiation emitted by a substance is passed into a spectrometer. The spectrum is characteristic of the emitting substance and the type of excitation to which it is subjected
- emissions trading — the buying and selling of allowances for pollutant emissions
- energy conversion — the process of changing one form of energy into another, such as nuclear energy into heat or solar energy into electrical energy
- enrolment figures — the numbers of people enrolling at an institution, on a course, etc
- environmentalists — Plural form of environmentalist.
- ethinyloestradiol — Alternative form of ethinylestradiol.
- exclusionary rule — a legal rule that evidence obtained illegally, as from a search without a warrant, may not be introduced at trial
- explosive forming — a rapid method of forming a metal object in which components are made by subjecting the metal to very high pressures generated by a controlled explosion
- extension courses — courses offered to outsiders by an educational establishment
- extraordinariness — The property of being extraordinary.
- factory inspector — a person who inspects factories
- 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.
- fictitious person — a legal entity or artificial person, as a corporation.
- fire commissioner — the senior or officer at state or provincial level in charge of fire prevention and fire safety
- firehose syndrome — (networking, jargon) An absence, failure or inadequacy of flow control mechanisms causing the sender to overwhelm the receiver. The implication is that, like trying to drink from a firehose, the consequenses are worse than just loss of data, e.g. the receiver may crash. See ping-flood.
- first commandment — “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”: first of the Ten Commandments.
- first performance — the first time that a play or concert is performed
- fitness programme — a plan to help someone improve their health and physical condition
- flea in one's ear — a sharp rebuke
- flexible response — a military strategy that enables the response to an attack to be adapted to the nature and strength of the attack
- florentine stitch — a straight stitch worked in a high and low relief pattern to form a variety of zigzag or oblique designs.
- 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
- 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.
- foreign secretary — foreign minister.
- forensic evidence — evidence obtained by the use of science, for example DNA evidence, etc
- forensic medicine — the application of medical knowledge to questions of civil and criminal law, especially in court proceedings.
- forest enterprise — a British government department responsible for maintaining and expanding forests
- foundation course — A foundation course is a course that you do at some colleges and universities in order to prepare yourself for a longer or more advanced course.
- fourier transform — a mapping of a function, as a signal, that is defined in one domain, as space or time, into another domain, as wavelength or frequency, where the function is represented in terms of sines and cosines.
- 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].
- frankenstein food — any foodstuff that has been genetically modified
- fraternal society — a club or other association, usually of men, having a limited membership and devoted to professional, religious, charitable, or social activities.
- french somaliland — a former name of Djibouti (def 1).
- frostbite sailing — the sport of sailing in temperate latitudes during the winter despite cold weather.
- 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.