16-letter words containing o, f, a
- dandruff shampoo — a preparation of soap or detergent used to wash the hair and which helps to control and reduce dandruff
- dark of the moon — the period during which the moon is not visible.
- day of atonement — Yom Kippur
- day of reckoning — If someone talks about the day of reckoning, they mean a day or time in the future when people will be forced to deal with an unpleasant situation which they have avoided until now.
- dead-man's float — a prone floating position, used especially by beginning swimmers, with face downward, legs extended backward, and arms stretched forward.
- dead-smooth file — the smoothest grade of file commonly used
- deboursification — (jargon) Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: sneck.
- decimal fraction — a fraction whose denominator is some power of 10, usually indicated by a dot (decimal point or point) written before the numerator: as 0.4 = 4/10; 0.126 = 126/1000.
- declassification — to remove the classification from (information, a document, etc.) that restricts access in terms of secrecy, confidentiality, etc. Compare classification (def 5).
- deflationary gap — a situation in which total spending in an economy is insufficient to buy all the output that can be produced with full employment
- dehumidification — Dehumidification is the removal of vapor from a gas-vapor mixture.
- dictionary flame — [Usenet] An attempt to sidetrack a debate away from issues by insisting on meanings for key terms that presuppose a desired conclusion or smuggle in an implicit premise. A common tactic of people who prefer argument over definitions to disputes about reality. Compare spelling flame.
- disqualification — an act or instance of disqualifying.
- dissatisfactions — Plural form of dissatisfaction.
- distrito federal — Federal District. Abbreviation: D.F.
- diversifications — Plural form of diversification.
- documentary film — factual, informative film
- dolce far niente — pleasing inactivity.
- dorothy canfield — Dorothy, Fisher, Dorothy Canfield.
- drag coefficient — a measure of the drag of an object in a moving fluid, esp air
- drift transistor — a transistor in which the impurity concentration in the base increases from the collector-base junction to the emitter-base junction, producing a resistivity gradient that greatly increases its high-frequency response
- duchess of malfi — a tragedy (1614?) by John Webster.
- dysfunctionality — (uncountable) The condition of being dysfunctional.
- east coast fever — a disease of cattle, endemic in east and central Africa, caused by a parasite, Theileria parva, that is carried by ticks
- economy of scale — a fall in average costs resulting from an increase in the scale of production
- edsel ford range — a mountain range in Antarctica, E of the Ross Sea.
- elected official — person voted into office
- electronic flash — Photography
- embroidery frame — a frame in the form of a pair of (usually circular) rings, designed to keep the fabric taut while an embroiderer works on it
- equation of time — the difference between apparent solar time and mean solar time, being at a maximum in February (over 14 minutes) and November (over 16 minutes)
- exemplifications — Plural form of exemplification.
- exhaust manifold — An exhaust manifold is a heat-resistant tube that connects an engine to an exhaust pipe.
- extrinsic factor — vitamin B12
- eyjafjallajökull — a cone-shaped ice cap in south Iceland that covers an active volcano. The volcano’s eruption in 2010 resulted in large high-altitude clouds of volcanic ash that caused major disruption to European passenger air traffic. Height: 1666 m (5466 ft)
- face recognition — the ability of a computer to scan, store, and recognize human faces for use in identifying people
- faction fighting — dissension
- factor of safety — the ratio of the maximum stress that a structural part or other piece of material can withstand to the maximum stress estimated for it in the use for which it is designed.
- fade-in fade-out — an optical effect in which a shot appears gradually out of darkness and then gradually disappears
- fair to middling — free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice: a fair decision; a fair judge.
- false beechdrops — either of two parasitic or saprophytic plants of the genus Monotropa, especially the tawny or reddish M. hypopithys (false beechdrops) of eastern North America.
- false dragonhead — a North American plant, Physostegia virginiana, of the mint family, having a spike of tubular, two-lipped, pink or white flowers.
- falsificationism — (epistemology) A scientific philosophy based on the requirement that hypotheses must be falsifiable in order to be scientific; if a claim is not able to be refuted it is not a scientific claim.
- family allowance — a regular government payment to the parents of children up to a certain age
- family of curves — a collection of curves whose equations differ only by values assigned a parameter or parameters.
- fandango on core — (jargon, programming) (Unix/C, from the Mexican dance) In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing a core dump, or corrupts the malloc arena in such a way as to cause mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to have "done a fandango on core". On low-end personal machines without an MMU, this can corrupt the operating system itself, causing massive lossage. Other frenetic dances such as the rhumba, cha-cha, or watusi, may be substituted. See aliasing bug, precedence lossage, smash the stack, memory leak, memory smash, overrun screw, core.
- fantail goldfish — an artificially bred, hardy variety of goldfish, usually oval-shaped and deep orange or calico, with a deeply cleft, four-lobed tail held in line with the body.
- fantasy football — imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
- farewell to arms — a novel (1929) by Ernest Hemingway.
- farmhouse cheese — cheese that is made by traditional methods, on or as if on a farm
- farmington hills — a city in SE Michigan.