17-letter words containing r, d, a
- ends of the earth — remote regions
- enlarged prostate — disorder of male reproductive gland
- epicycloidal gear — a gear of an epicyclic train
- esprit d'escalier — clever repartee one thinks of too late
- ethinyloestradiol — Alternative form of ethinylestradiol.
- european standard — a specification to be used as a consistent rule or guideline in the manufacture or selling of a certain product or service traded within Europe
- examination board — an organization that sets and corrects exams
- exception handler — Special code which is called when an exception occurs during the execution of a program. If the programmer does not provide a handler for a given exception, a built-in system exception handler will usually be called resulting in abortion of the program run and some kind of error indication being returned to the user. Examples of exception handler mechanisms are Unix's signal calls and Lisp's catch and throw.
- exemplary damages — law: fine imposed as a deterrent
- export department — the department of a business concerned with the export of the business's goods or services
- export-orientated — (of an industry, company, etc) mainly concerned with the export of goods or services
- extraordinariness — The property of being extraordinary.
- extraordinary ray — the plane-polarized ray of light that does not obey the laws of refraction in a doubly refracting crystal
- facts and figures — details; precise information
- fade in (or out) — to appear or cause to appear (or disappear) gradually; make or become more (or less) distinct
- faint-heartedness — lack of courage
- fairness doctrine — a policy mandated by the Federal Communications Commission, requiring radio and television stations to grant equal time to a political candidate, group, etc., to present an opposing viewpoint to one already aired.
- falkland islander — a person from the Falkland Islands
- fall on deaf ears — the organ of hearing and equilibrium in vertebrates, in humans consisting of an external ear that gathers sound vibrations, a middle ear in which the vibrations resonate against the tympanic membrane, and a fluid-filled internal ear that maintains balance and that conducts the tympanic vibrations to the auditory nerve, which transmits them as impulses to the brain.
- false bread-fruit — ceriman.
- fancy dress party — a party at which the guests wear fancy dress
- fear and loathing — (Hunter S. Thompson) A state inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards that are totally brain-damaged but ubiquitous - Intel 8086s, COBOL, EBCDIC, or any IBM machine except the Rios (also known as the RS/6000).
- feathered friends — Birds are sometimes referred to as our feathered friends.
- federal land bank — a U.S. federal bank for making long-term loans to farmers.
- feint-ruled paper — writing paper with light horizontal lines printed across at regular intervals
- fendalton tractor — a four-wheel drive recreational vehicle
- fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
- field sales force — a team of people selling a product or service in the field as opposed to over the telephone, etc
- financial adviser — A financial adviser is someone whose job it is to advise people about financial products and services.
- first commandment — “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”: first of the Ten Commandments.
- first-aid classes — classes which teach people how to give immediate medical help in an emergency
- flagrante delicto — Law. in the very act of committing the offense.
- floating dry dock — a dock that floats and can be lowered in the water for the entrance of a ship, and then raised for use as a dry dock
- flog a dead horse — a large, solid-hoofed, herbivorous quadruped, Equus caballus, domesticated since prehistoric times, bred in a number of varieties, and used for carrying or pulling loads, for riding, and for racing.
- fluid lubrication — lubrication in which bearing surfaces are separated by an oil film sustained by the motion of the parts
- folie de grandeur — a delusion of grandeur; megalomania.
- follow the leader — a child's game in which players, one behind the other, follow a leader and must repeat or follow everything he or she does.
- for all the world — the earth or globe, considered as a planet.
- for ever and ever — for eternity
- fore-and-aft sail — any of various sails, as jib-headed sails, gaff sails, lugsails, lateen sails, spritsails, staysails, and jibs, that do not set on yards and whose normal position, when not trimmed, is in a fore-and-aft direction amidships.
- forever and a day — without ever ending; eternally: to last forever.
- fort leonard wood — a military reservation and U.S. Army training center in SW Missouri, SW of Rolla.
- forward contracts — Forward contracts are agreements to buy something in the future for a price that has been agreed today.
- forward quotation — the price quoted on a forward delivery.
- foundation course — A foundation course is a course that you do at some colleges and universities in order to prepare yourself for a longer or more advanced course.
- four-rowed barley — a class of barley having, in each spike, six rows of grain, with two pairs of rows overlapping.
- fourfold purchase — a tackle that is composed of a rope passed through two fourfold blocks in such a way as to provide mechanical power in the ratio of 1 to 5 or 1 to 4, depending on whether hauling is done on the running or the standing block and without considering friction. Compare tackle (def 2).
- fractal dimension — (mathematics) A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by "measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object. Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object. For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by repeatedly replacing ___ with _/\_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/\_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
- frames per second — (unit) (fps) The unit of measurement of the frame rate of a moving image.
- francis ferdinand — 1863–1914, archduke of Austria: heir apparent to the thrones of Austria and Hungary whose assassination precipitated the outbreak of World War I (nephew of Francis Joseph I).