17-letter words containing r, f, c
- comedy of manners — a comedy dealing with the way of life and foibles of a social group
- common difference — the positive or negative constant added to each term in an arithmetic progression
- common of turbary — (in England) the legal right to cut peat for fuel on a common
- complete fracture — a bone fracture in which the bone is split completely across.
- compound fraction — complex fraction
- compound fracture — A compound fracture is a fracture in which the broken bone sticks through the skin.
- computer confetti — (jargon) (Or "chad") A common term for punched-card chad, which, however, does not make good confetti, as the pieces are stiff and have sharp corners that could injure the eyes.
- conference centre — a large venue designed for conferences often consisting of a large hall as well as a number of smaller lecture rooms and other facilities
- configurationally — With regard to a configuration.
- confirmation-bias — the tendency to process and analyze information in such a way that it supports one’s preexisting ideas and convictions: Confirmation bias is a major issue when we get all our news from social media sites. Unfortunately, their experimental method was proven invalid due to confirmation bias.
- confrontationally — In a confrontational way.
- congo-kordofanian — Niger-Kordofanian
- conscript fathers — august legislators, esp Roman senators
- contempt of court — Contempt of court is the criminal offence of disobeying an instruction from a judge or a court of law.
- continental drift — Continental drift is the slow movement of the Earth's continents towards and away from each other.
- contraband of war — war materiel, as ammunition or weapons, which, by international law, may rightfully be intercepted and seized by either belligerent when shipped to the other one by a neutral country
- contraflow system — a system of traffic lanes whose normal direction is reversed to allow traffic to move during repairs or an accident
- copious free time — (jargon) (Apple; originally from the introduction to Tom Lehrer's song "It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier") Used ironically to indicate the speaker's lack of the quantity in question; a mythical schedule slot for accomplishing tasks held to be unlikely or impossible. Sometimes used to indicate that the speaker is interested in accomplishing the task, but believes that the opportunity will not arise. "I'll implement the automatic layout stuff in my copious free time." The phrase is also used for time reserved for bogus or otherwise idiotic tasks, such as implementation of bad chrome, or the stroking of suits. "I'll get back to him on that feature in my copious free time."
- corporal of horse — a noncommissioned rank in the British Household Cavalry above that of sergeant and below that of staff sergeant
- council of europe — an association of European states, established in 1949 to promote unity between its members, defend human rights, and increase social and economic progress
- counter-influence — the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others: He used family influence to get the contract.
- counteroffensives — Plural form of counteroffensive.
- country of origin — the country from which a person originally comes
- court of chancery — (in the US) a court of equity
- court of sessions — any of state courts of criminal jurisdiction in California, New York, and a few other states.
- court-of-chancery — chancery (def 4a).
- cream of the crop — the best of a group
- creature comforts — Creature comforts are the things that you need to feel comfortable in a place, for example good food and modern equipment.
- creature of habit — If you say that someone is a creature of habit, you mean that they usually do the same thing at the same time each day, rather than doing new and different things.
- credit facilities — a type of loan made by a bank
- cross of lorraine — a cross with two horizontal bars above and below the midpoint of the vertical bar, the lower longer than the upper
- crucifixion thorn — one of several leafless, very thorny shrubs or small trees of the southwestern desert areas of North America.
- culture diffusion — the spreading out of culture, culture traits, or a cultural pattern from a central point.
- culture-fair test — a test, usually for intelligence, that does not put anyone taking it at a disadvantage, esp regarding material or cultural background
- culture-free test — a test (usually for intelligence) that does not put anyone taking it at a disadvantage, for instance, as regards material or cultural background
- cut a good figure — to appear or behave well
- cut a poor figure — to appear or behave badly
- damp-proof course — A damp-proof course is the same as a damp course.
- david copperfield — a novel (1850) by Charles Dickens.
- de facto standard — A widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol which has not been ratified by any official standards body, such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market share. The archetypal example of a de facto standard is the IBM PC which, despite is many glaring technical deficiencies, has gained such a large share of the personal computer market that it is now popular simply because it is popular and therefore enjoys fierce competition in pricing and software development.
- death certificate — A death certificate is an official certificate signed by a doctor which states the cause of a person's death.
- defence secretary — the member of a government who is responsible for the country's armed forces
- deferred sentence — a sentence that is postponed for a specific period to allow a court to examine the conduct of the offender during the deferment
- denial of service — a deliberate interruption in access to a computer system or network, esp by using multiple computers to generate an unmanageable volume of traffic (distributed denial of service)
- denial-of-service — pertaining to or being an incident in which a computer or computer network is disabled, disrupting access or service: a website hit by a denial-of-service attack; unintentional denial-of-service problems.
- difference engine — (computer, history) Charles Babbage's design for the first automatic mechanical calculator. The Difference Engine was a special purpose device intended for the production of mathematical tables. Babbage started work on the Difference Engine in 1823 with funding from the British Government. Only one-seventh of the complete engine, about 2000 parts, was built in 1832 by Babbage's engineer, Joseph Clement. This was demonstrated successfully by Babbage and still works perfectly. The engine was never completed and most of the 12,000 parts manufactured were later melted for scrap. It was left to Georg and Edvard Schuetz to construct the first working devices to the same design which were successful in limited applications. The Difference Engine No. 2 was finally completed in 1991 at the Science Museum, London, UK and is on display there. The engine used gears to compute cumulative sums in a series of registers: r[i] := r[i] + r[i+1]. However, the addition had the side effect of zeroing r[i+1]. Babbage overcame this by simultaneously copying r[i+1] to a temporary register during the addition and then copying it back to r[i+1] at the end of each cycle (each turn of a handle).
- director of music — a person in charge of musical training and performance at an institution such as a college, especially the head bandmaster of a military band
- disrespectfulness — The state or quality of being disrespectful; disrespect; disregard.
- distributed force — A distributed force is a force that acts on a large part of a surface, not just on one place.
- double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.