15-letter words containing o, f, r, a
- law-enforcement — of police, anti-crime
- lay a finger on — to harm
- leadwort family — the plant family Plumbaginaceae, characterized by shrubs and herbaceous plants of seacoasts and semiarid regions, having basal or alternate leaves, spikelike clusters of tubular flowers, and dry, one-seeded fruit, and including leadwort, sea lavender, statice, and thrift.
- leaf primordium — a group of cells that will develop into a leaf, seen as small bulges just below the shoot apex.
- leapfrog attack — Use of userid and password information obtained illicitly from one host (e.g. downloading a file of account IDs and passwords, tapping TELNET, etc.) to compromise another host. Also, the act of TELNETting through one or more hosts in order to confuse a trace (a standard cracker procedure).
- leaves of grass — a book of poems (first edition, 1855; final edition, 1891–92) by Walt Whitman.
- legacy software — legacy system
- liaison officer — a person who liaises between groups or units
- lift-drag ratio — the ratio of the lift to the drag of an airfoil.
- limiting factor — Physiology. the slowest, therefore rate-limiting, step in a process or reaction involving several steps.
- linear function — linear transformation.
- linear manifold — subspace (def 2b).
- loaded for bear — any of the plantigrade, carnivorous or omnivorous mammals of the family Ursidae, having massive bodies, coarse heavy fur, relatively short limbs, and almost rudimentary tails.
- long-sufferance — long-suffering.
- look forward to — to turn one's eyes toward something or in some direction in order to see: He looked toward the western horizon and saw the returning planes.
- low pass filter — (electronics, graphics) A filter that attenuates high frequency components of a signal. In image processing, a low pass filter might be used to remove noise from an image.
- low-pass filter — a filter that transmits all frequencies below a specified value, substantially attenuating frequencies above this value
- magnesioferrite — (mineralogy) A magnesium iron oxide mineral, a member of the magnetite series of spinels, which forms black metallic octahedral crystals.
- maid of orléans — Saint ("the Maid of Orléans") 1412?–31, French national heroine and martyr who raised the siege of Orléans.
- mail order firm — a company that sells goods by mail order
- make a play for — to act the part of (a person or character) in a dramatic performance; portray: to play Lady Macbeth.
- make certain of — to ensure (that one will get something); confirm
- make it hot for — having or giving off heat; having a high temperature: a hot fire; hot coffee.
- make the effort — try
- make tracks for — to go or head towards
- malconformation — Imperfect, disproportionate, or abnormal formation; disproportion of parts.
- man of his word — a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning. Words are composed of one or more morphemes and are either the smallest units susceptible of independent use or consist of two or three such units combined under certain linking conditions, as with the loss of primary accent that distinguishes black·bird· from black· bird·. Words are usually separated by spaces in writing, and are distinguished phonologically, as by accent, in many languages.
- man of the hour — a man who is honored by a group.
- man-of-war bird — frigate bird.
- man-of-war fish — a small, tropical fish, Nomeus gronovii, that lives among the tentacles of the Portuguese man-of-war.
- marfan syndrome — a hereditary disorder characterized by abnormally elongated bones, especially in the extremities, hypermotility of the joints, and circulatory and eye abnormalities.
- margaritiferous — yielding or wearing pearls
- margin of error — statistics: variance
- matron of honor — a married woman acting as the principal attendant of the bride at a wedding.
- medal for merit — a medal awarded by the U.S. to a civilian for distinguished service to the country: discontinued after World War II.
- medical officer — a doctor of medicine who serves in the armed forces in a medical capacity
- member of staff — an employee of a particular organization
- metainformation — metadata
- mezzanine floor — intermediate level in a building
- microfiltration — Filtration through a microporous membrane.
- micromicrofarad — picofarad. Symbol: μμF.
- microsoft basic — (language) (MS-BASIC) A dialect of BASIC from Microsoft, originally developed by Bill Gates in a garage back in the CP/M days. It was originally known as GWBasic, then QBASIC and finally MS-BASIC. When the MS-DOS operating system came out, it incorporated the GWBASIC.EXE or BASICA.EXE interpreters. GWBASIC ("Gee Whiz") incorporated graphics and a screen editor and was compatible with earlier BASICs. QBASIC was more sophisticated. Version 4.5 had a full screen editor, debugger and compiler. The compiler could also produce executable files but to run these a utility program (BRUN44.EXE) had to be present. Thus source code could be kept private. From DOS 5.0 or 6.0 onward, MS-BASIC was standard. Version 1.1 produced stand-alone executables and could display graphics.
- mis-informative — to give false or misleading information to.
- moccasin flower — the lady's-slipper.
- molecular knife — a segment of genetic material that inhibits the reproduction of the AIDS virus by breaking up specific areas of the virus's genes.
- moreton bay fig — a large Australian fig tree, Ficus macrophylla, having glossy leaves and smooth bark
- mortgage relief — (formerly) a reduction of tax on income being used to pay off a mortgage
- mother of pearl — a hard, iridescent substance that forms the inner layer of certain mollusk shells, used for making buttons, beads, etc.; nacre.
- mother-of-pearl — a hard, iridescent substance that forms the inner layer of certain mollusk shells, used for making buttons, beads, etc.; nacre.
- multiflora rose — a climbing or trailing rose, Rosa multiflora, of Japan and Korea, having hooked prickles and fragrant, dense clusters of flowers.