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15-letter words containing o, f

  • feast or famine — characterized by alternating, extremely high and low degrees of prosperity, success, volume of business, etc.: artists who lead a feast-or-famine life.
  • feast-or-famine — characterized by alternating, extremely high and low degrees of prosperity, success, volume of business, etc.: artists who lead a feast-or-famine life.
  • federal holiday — a day which is a national holiday at the behest of the Federal Government
  • fee-for-service — pertaining to the charging of fees for specific services rendered in health care, as distinguished from participating in a prepaid medical practice: fee-for-service medicine.
  • feeding grounds — the place where animals gather to find food
  • feel one's oats — a cereal grass, Avena sativa, cultivated for its edible seed.
  • feelgood factor — When journalists refer to the feelgood factor, they mean that people are feeling hopeful and optimistic about the future.
  • fellow creature — a kindred creature, especially a fellow human being.
  • fellow traveler — a person who supports or sympathizes with a political party, especially the Communist Party, but is not an enrolled member.
  • fencepost error — 1. (Rarely "lamp-post error") A problem with the discrete equivalent of a boundary condition, often exhibited in programs by iterative loops. From the following problem: "If you build a fence 100 feet long with posts 10 feet apart, how many posts do you need?" (Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10). For example, suppose you have a long list or array of items, and want to process items m through n; how many items are there? The obvious answer is n - m, but that is off by one; the right answer is n - m + 1. The "obvious" formula exhibits a fencepost error. See also zeroth and note that not all off-by-one errors are fencepost errors. The game of Musical Chairs involves a catastrophic off-by-one error where N people try to sit in N - 1 chairs, but it's not a fencepost error. Fencepost errors come from counting things rather than the spaces between them, or vice versa, or by neglecting to consider whether one should count one or both ends of a row. 2. (Rare) An error induced by unexpected regularities in input values, which can (for instance) completely thwart a theoretically efficient binary tree or hash coding implementation. The error here involves the difference between expected and worst case behaviours of an algorithm.
  • ferric chloride — a compound that in its anhydrous form, FeCl 3 , occurs as a black-brown, water-soluble solid; in its hydrated form, FeCl 3 ⋅xH 2 O, it occurs in orange-yellow, deliquescent crystals: used chiefly in engraving, for deodorizing sewage, as a mordant, and in medicine as an astringent and styptic.
  • ferrihemoglobin — methemoglobin.
  • ferroelasticity — (physics) A phenomenon, analogous to ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity, in which spontaneous strain arises within a material.
  • ferromolybdenum — a ferroalloy containing up to 60 percent molybdenum.
  • ferrous sulfate — a bluish-green, crystalline, saline-tasting, water-soluble heptahydrated solid, FeSO 4 ⋅7H 2 O, used chiefly in the manufacture of other iron salts, in water purification, fertilizer, inks, pigments, tanning, photography, and in medicine in the treatment of anemia.
  • ferrous sulfide — a dark or black metallic crystalline compound, FeS, insoluble in water, soluble in acids, used in ceramics and to generate hydrogen sulfide.
  • fetal diagnosis — prenatal determination of genetic or chemical abnormalities in a fetus, esp by amniocentesis
  • fibrocartilages — Plural form of fibrocartilage.
  • fideicommissary — the recipient of a fideicommissum.
  • field of honour — the place or scene of a battle or duel, esp of jousting tournaments in medieval times
  • field of vision — the entire view encompassed by the eye when it is trained in any particular direction.
  • field woundwort — the plant Stachys arvensis
  • fiesta de toros — a bullfight; corrida.
  • fifth columnist — A fifth columnist is someone who secretly supports and helps the enemies of the country or organization they are in.
  • fifth dimension — a theoretical dimension beyond or in addition to a fourth dimension.
  • fight-or-flight — denoting instinctive response
  • fighter command — a former unit of the Royal Air Force dedicated to the use of fighter aircraft, esp against enemy bombers and their escorts during WWII
  • figure of eight — figure eight.
  • figure of merit — a measure of the efficiency of a helicopter in hover
  • file descriptor — (programming, operating system)   An integer that identifies an open file within a process. This number is obtained as a result of opening a file. Operations which read, write, or close a file would take the file descriptor as an input parameter. In many operating system implementations, file descriptors are small integers which index a table of open files. In Unix, file descriptors 0, 1 and 2 correspond to the standard input, standard output and standard error files respectively. See file descriptor leak.
  • filling station — service station (def 1).
  • finance company — an institution engaged in such specialized forms of financing as purchasing accounts receivable, extending credit to retailers and manufacturers, discounting installment contracts, and granting loans with goods as security.
  • find one's feet — to become capable or confident, as in a new job
  • fine-tooth comb — a comb having narrow, closely set teeth.
  • finger-pointing — the imputation of blame or responsibility.
  • finishing touch — a final additional or detail that completes and perfects something
  • finite automata — Finite State Machine
  • finno-russo war — the war (1939–40) between Finland and the Soviet Union.
  • fire prevention — safety measures to decrease fire risk
  • fire water pond — A fire water pond is an area of water which is kept so it can be used if there is a fire.
  • fire-and-forget — used to describe a type of missile that, once fired, is able to guide itself to its target
  • fireless cooker — an insulated container that seals in heat to cook food.
  • first intention — See under intention (def 5a).
  • first responder — a person who is certified to provide medical care in emergencies before more highly trained medical personnel arrive on the scene: a firefighter trained as a first responder.
  • first world war — World War I.
  • first-day cover — a cover marked so as to indicate that it was mailed on the first day of issue of the stamp it bears and from one of the cities at which the stamp was issued on that day.
  • first-intention — an act or instance of determining mentally upon some action or result.
  • fishhook cactus — a large cactus, Ferocactus wislizenii, of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico, having hooked spines and red or yellow flowers.
  • fishing harbour — a place where fishing boats are tied up
  • fission product — a nuclide produced either directly by nuclear fission or by the radioactive decay of such a nuclide
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