20-letter words containing o, f, a
- binomial coefficient — any of the numerical factors which multiply the successive terms in a binomial expansion; any term of the form n!/(n–k)!k!: written (nk), nCk, or Cnk
- biological half life — Physics. the time required for one half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate.
- biological half-life — the time required for half of a quantity of radioactive material absorbed by a living tissue or organism to be naturally eliminated
- bird-footed dinosaur — theropod.
- blow up in sb's face — If something that you have planned blows up in your face, it goes wrong unexpectedly, with the result that you suffer.
- blue screen of death — (humour) (BSOD) The infamous white-on-blue text screen which appears when Microsoft Windows crashes. BSOD is mostly seen on the 16-bit systems such as Windows 3.1, but also on Windows 95 and apparently even under Windows NT 4. It is most likely to be caused by a GPF, although Windows 95 can do it if you've removed a required CD-ROM from the drive. It is often impossible to recover cleanly from a BSOD. The acronym BSOD is sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "Windoze just keeps BSODing on me today".
- board of supervisors — the governing body of a county in many U.S. states, especially in the Midwest and the East, consisting of from 15 to 100 members elected from towns, townships, cities, or wards.
- bobbin and fly frame — a roving machine used in the final stages of converting spun cotton fiber into yarn.
- bottom of the barrel — poor quality
- bouvier des flandres — any of a breed of large, strong dog with a rough, wiry coat and pointed, erect ears
- breakfast television — Breakfast television refers to television programmes which are broadcast in the morning at the time when most people are having breakfast.
- bureau of the census — the division of the Department of Commerce that gathers, tabulates, and correlates census statistics.
- by/from all accounts — If you say that something is true by all accounts or from all accounts, you believe it is true because other people say so.
- calculus of pleasure — (in utilitarianism) appraisal of possible alternative choices in terms of the amount of pleasure to be gained and pain to be avoided in each.
- california barracuda — a small, slender barracuda, Sphyraena argentea, of coastal seas from Alaska to Baja California, valued as a food fish.
- california gold fern — an evergreen fern, Pityrogramma triangularis, growing from British Columbia to California, having the underside of the leaves covered with a deep yellow, powderlike substance.
- call someone's bluff — to challenge someone to give proof of his claims
- can do sth blindfold — If you say that you can do something blindfold, you are emphasizing that you can do it easily, for example because you have done it many times before.
- cape prince of wales — a cape in W Alaska, on the Bering Strait opposite the coast of the extreme northeast of Russia: the westernmost point of North America
- carry all before one — to win unanimous support or approval for oneself
- carry off one's feet — to fill with enthusiasm
- cast the first stone — the hard substance, formed of mineral matter, of which rocks consist.
- catastrophic failure — Catastrophic failure is sudden and complete failure which cannot be put right.
- central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
- certificate of stock — stock certificate.
- certified accountant — (in Britain) a member of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, who is authorized to audit company accounts
- chapter of accidents — a series of misfortunes
- chronic inflammation — persistent infection or swelling
- clean bill of health — a good report of one's physical condition
- clean-bill-of-health — a certificate, carried by a ship, attesting to the presence or absence of infectious diseases among the ship's crew and at the port from which it has come.
- clothes manufacturer — a business concern that manufactures clothes
- college of cardinals — the collective body of cardinals having the function of electing and advising the pope
- college of education — a professional training college for teachers
- complete unification — (programming) W.P. Weijland's name for unification without occur check.
- confectioners' sugar — Confectioners' sugar is very fine white sugar that is used for making icing and candy.
- conformal projection — a map projection in which angles formed by lines are preserved: a map made using this projection preserves the shape of any small area.
- conservation of mass — the principle that the total mass of any isolated system is constant and is independent of any chemical and physical changes taking place within the system
- context of situation — the totality of extralinguistic features having relevance to a communicative act.
- context-free grammar — (grammar) (CFG) A grammar where the syntax of each constituent (syntactic category or terminal symbol) is independent of the symbols occuring before and after it in a sentence. A context-free grammar describes a context-free language. Context-free grammars can be expressed by a set of "production rules" or syntactic rules. For example, a language with symbols "a" and "b" that must occur in unequal numbers can be represented by the CFG: S → U | V U → TaU | TaT | UaT V → TbV | TbT | VbT T → aTbT | bTaT | ε meaning the top-level category "S" consists of either a "U" or a "V" and so on. The special category "ε" represents the empty string. This grammar is context-free because each rule has a single symbol on its left-hand side.
- correctional officer — a prison guard
- counter-inflationary — designed to reduce inflation
- counterproliferation — Action intended to prevent an increase or spread in the possession of nuclear weapons.
- court of last resort — (in the US) a supreme court
- court of st. james's — the British royal court: so called from St. James's Palace, London, the former scene of royal receptions.
- covenant of warranty — warranty (def 2b).
- covenant-of-warranty — warranty (def 2b).
- cream of tomato soup — a creamy soup made from tomatoes
- curry favour with sb — If one person tries to curry favour with another, they do things in order to try to gain their support or co-operation.
- darkfield microscope — kind of microscope
- data dictionary file — (database) (DDF) A set of files describing the structure of a database file. DDFs define database tables and include information about file locations, field layouts and indexes. DDFs are the standard method for defining field and index characteristics for Btrieve files.