21-letter words containing o, f, s, a
- discriminant function — a linear function of measurements of different properties of an object or event that is used to assign the object or event to one population or another (discriminant analysis)
- downhole safety valve — A downhole safety valve is a piece of safety equipment used inside a well, which isolates wellbore pressure and fluid if something bad happens.
- draft once reuse many — (jargon) (DORUM) Reusing parts of a document to produce parts of an entirely new document. The term normally refers to text documents but the practise is equally common in programming.
- dumfries and galloway — a region in S Scotland. 2460 sq. mi. (6371 sq. km).
- ethics of the fathers — a treatise of the Mishnah that comprises six chapters and consists chiefly of proverbs, aphorisms, and principles of ethics, law, and religion.
- fall all over oneself — to drop or descend under the force of gravity, as to a lower place through loss or lack of support.
- false memory syndrome — a psychological condition in which a person believes that he or she remembers events that have not actually occurred.
- false-memory syndrome — a psychological condition in which a person believes that he or she remembers events that have not actually occurred.
- federal reserve board — a U.S. federal banking system that is under the control of a central board of governors (Federal Reserve Board) with a central bank (Federal Reserve Bank) in each of 12 districts and that has wide powers in controlling credit and the flow of money as well as in performing other functions, as regulating and supervising its member banks.
- fermat's last theorem — the unproved theorem that the equation xn + yn = zn has no solution for x, y, z nonzero integers when n is greater than 2.
- ferric sodium oxalate — an emerald-green, crystalline, extremely water-soluble salt, used in photography and blueprinting.
- finite state automata — Finite State Machine
- first baron ashburton — Alexander, 1st Baron Ashburton, 1774–1848, British statesman.
- first consonant shift — the consonant shift described by Grimm's law, which distinguishes Germanic languages from other Indo-European languages.
- first-dollar coverage — insurance that provides payment for the full loss up to the insured amount with no deductibles.
- first-round financing — First round financing is the first time a new company raises money from investors.
- fluorophosphoric acid — any of three acids containing fluorine and phosphorus, HPF 6 , HPO 2 F 2 , or H 2 PO 3 F.
- food conversion ratio — a ratio expressing the weight of food required to produce a unit gain in the live weight of an animal
- food standards agency — the full form of FDA
- foot-in-mouth disease — the habit of making inappropriate, insensitive, or imprudent statements.
- forensic anthropology — the branch of physical anthropology in which anthropological data, criteria, and techniques are used to determine the sex, age, genetic population, or parentage of skeletal or biological materials in questions of civil or criminal law.
- fort lesley j. mcnair — a military reservation in SW Washington, D.C., on the Potomac River, SW of the Capitol.
- framing specification — A specification of the "protocol bits" that surround the "data bits" on a communications channel to allow the data to be "framed" into chunks, like start and stop bits in EIA-232. It allows a receiver to synchronize at points along the data stream.
- franco-belgian system — French system.
- fraudulent conversion — conversion committed with the intent to defraud
- free alongside vessel — (of a shipment of goods) delivered to the dock without charge to the buyer, but excluding the cost of loading onto the vessel
- french fried potatoes — a more formal name for chips
- frequent wash shampoo — a shampoo whose mildness allows it to be used frequently
- from dan to beersheba — from one end of Israel to the other: Judg. 20:1
- game of cat and mouse — In a fight or contest, if one person plays cat and mouse, or a game of cat and mouse, with the other, the first person tries to confuse or deceive the second in order to defeat them.
- general of the armies — a special rank held by John J. Pershing, equivalent to general of the army.
- get/have the hots for — If you say that one person has the hots for another, you mean that they feel a strong sexual attraction to that person.
- go (in) to bat for sb — If you go to bat for someone or go in to bat for them, you give them your support.
- have heard sth before — If you say that you have heard something before, you mean that you are not interested in it, or do not believe it, or are not surprised about it, because you already know about it or have experienced it.
- have one's hands full — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
- highest common factor — greatest common divisor. Abbreviation: H.C.F.
- horns and halo effect — a tendency to allow one's judgement of another person, esp in a job interview, to be unduly influenced by an unfavourable (horns) or favourable (halo) first impression based on appearances
- host command facility — (operating system) (HCF) Used to access IBM S/36 and AS/400 computers from a mainframe.
- hubble classification — a method of classifying galaxies depending on whether they are elliptical, spiral, barred spiral, or irregular
- identification papers — documents that serve to establish someone's identity
- in (or out of) phase — in (or not in) a state of exactly parallel movements, oscillations, etc.; in (or not in) synchronization
- in a class of its own — unequalled; unparalleled
- in a state of undress — If someone is in a state of undress, they do not have all their clothes on.
- in phase/out of phase — If two things are out of phase with each other, they are not working or happening together as they should. If two things are in phase, they are working or occurring together as they should.
- infectious ectromelia — ectromelia (def 2).
- inflationary universe — a version of the big bang theory in which the universe underwent very rapid growth during the first fraction of a second before it settled down to its current rate of expansion.
- information scientist — someone who works in information science
- isolation transformer — An isolation transformer is a transformer with physically separate primary and secondary windings, that prevent it from transferring unwanted noise from the input circuit to the output windings.
- joint chiefs of staff — the chiefs of staff of the army and the air force, the commandant of the marine corps, and the chief of naval operations, together with a chairman selected from one of the branches of the armed forces, serving as the principal military advisory body to the president, the National Security Council, and the secretary of defense.
- joseph bonaparte gulf — an inlet of the Timor Sea in N Australia. Width: 360 km (225 miles)