16-letter words containing o, a, f, i, s
- functional shift — a change in the grammatical function of a word, as in the use of the noun input as a verb or the noun fun as an adjective.
- gas blowoff line — A gas blowoff line is a safety device to control sudden increases in pressure.
- gas liquefaction — Gas liquefaction is the process of refrigerating a gas to a temperature that is below its critical temperature in order to form a liquid.
- go off the rails — If someone goes off the rails, they start to behave in a way that other people think is unacceptable or very strange, for example they start taking drugs or breaking the law.
- go-faster stripe — a decorative line, intended to be suggestive of high speed, on the bodywork of a car
- goosefoot family — formerly, the plant family Chenopodiaceae, characterized by often weedy herbaceous plants and shrubs having simple, usually alternate leaves, small and inconspicuous flowers, and tiny, dry fruit, and including the beet, glasswort, goosefoot, Russian thistle, saltbush, and spinach; now part of the amaranth family, Amaranthaceae.
- harvey firestone — Harvey Samuel, 1868–1938, U.S. industrialist and rubber manufacturer.
- head post office — the main post office in a town
- heat of solution — the heat evolved or absorbed when one mole of a substance dissolves completely in a large volume of solvent
- homme d'affaires — a businessman.
- horsehair fungus — an edible white, striated, umbrella-capped mushroom, Marasmius rotula, commonly found in eastern North America.
- hourglass figure — the shape of a woman who is well-proportioned and has a small waist
- if it wasn't for — If you talk about what would happen if it wasn't for someone or something, you mean that they are the only thing that is preventing it from happening.
- in the shadow of — very close to; verging upon
- in--one-s--favor — something done or granted out of goodwill, rather than from justice or for remuneration; a kind act: to ask a favor.
- information desk — helpdesk, information point
- intensifications — Plural form of intensification.
- intestinal flora — microorganisms that normally inhabit the lumen of the intestinal tract
- intrinsic factor — a glycoprotein, secreted by the gastric mucosa, that is involved in the intestinal absorption of vitamin B 12 .
- isle of portland — a rugged limestone peninsula in SW England, in Dorset, connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus and by Chesil Bank: the lighthouse of Portland Bill lies at the S tip; famous for the quarrying of Portland stone, a fine building material. Pop (town): 12 000 (latest est)
- isoplastic graft — syngraft.
- it's fair to say — You use fair in expressions such as It would be fair to say in order to introduce a statement which you believe to be true and reasonable.
- job satisfaction — Job satisfaction is the pleasure that you get from doing your job.
- kingdom of arles — a kingdom in SE France which had dissolved by 1378: known as the Kingdom of Burgundy until about 1200
- kirchhoff's laws — the law that the algebraic sum of the currents flowing toward any point in an electric network is zero.
- knights of labor — a secret workingmen's organization formed in 1869 to defend the interests of labor.
- knights of malta — the order of Hospitalers.
- law of parsimony — a principle according to which an explanation of a thing or event is made with the fewest possible assumptions.
- lignin sulfonate — a brown powder consisting of a sulfonate salt made from waste liquor of the sulfate pulping process of soft wood: used in concrete, leather tanning, as an additive in oil-well drilling mud, and as a source of vanillin.
- lissajous figure — the series of plane curves traced by an object executing two mutually perpendicular harmonic motions.
- louisiana french — French as spoken in Louisiana; Cajun. Abbreviation: LaF.
- make an issue of — If you make an issue of something, you try to make other people think about it or discuss it, because you are concerned or annoyed about it.
- margin of safety — therapeutic index.
- marsh cinquefoil — a variety of cinquefoil, Potentilla palustris, that grows in marshy areas
- matthew of paris — c1200–59, English chronicler.
- mexican standoff — a stalemate or impasse; a confrontation that neither side can win.
- microsoft access — 1. (database) A relational database running under Microsoft Windows. Data is stored as a number of "tables", e.g. "Stock". Each table consists of a number of "records" (e.g. for different items) and each record contains a number of "fields", e.g. "Product code", "Supplier", "Quantity in stock". Access allows the user to create "forms" and "reports". A form shows one record in a user-designed format and allows the user to step through records one at a time. A report shows selected records in a user-designed format, possibly grouped into sections with different kinds of total (including sum, minimum, maximum, average). There are also facilities to use links ("joins") between tables which share a common field and to filter records according to certain criteria or search for particular field values. Version: 2 (date?). 2. (communications) A communications program from Microsoft, meant to compete with ProComm and other programs. It sucked and was dropped. Years later they reused the name for their database.
- milk of magnesia — a milky white suspension in water of magnesium hydroxide, Mg (OH) 2 , used as an antacid or laxative.
- minerva software — A company producing software for the Acorn Archimedes.
- miraculous fruit — miracle fruit.
- misconfiguration — An incorrect or inappropriate configuration.
- misspecification — An incorrect specification.
- modified-release — denoting a formulation of a medicinal drug taken orally that releases the active ingredients over several hours, in order to maintain a relatively constant plasma concentration of the drug
- multifariousness — (uncountable) The characteristic of being multifarious.
- multiple factors — polygene.
- narcotraffickers — Plural form of narcotrafficker.
- neo-confucianist — of or relating to neo-Confucians or neo-Confucianism.
- new frontiersman — an advocate or follower of the New Frontier, especially one in public service.
- newspaper office — an office where the editorial and production staff of a newspaper work
- nicholas of cusa — 1401–64, German cardinal, philosopher, and mathematician: anticipated Copernicus in asserting that the earth revolves around the sun