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15-letter words containing r, o, s, e, 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.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • ferroelasticity — (physics) A phenomenon, analogous to ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity, in which spontaneous strain arises within a material.
  • 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.
  • fibrocartilages — Plural form of fibrocartilage.
  • fideicommissary — the recipient of a fideicommissum.
  • fiesta de toros — a bullfight; corrida.
  • 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.
  • 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-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.
  • fission reactor — a nuclear reactor in which a fission reaction takes place
  • fissiparousness — The quality of being fissiparous.
  • five-star hotel — a top-quality hotel offering exceptional luxury
  • flatter oneself — to hold the self-satisfying or self-deluding belief (that)
  • flavourlessness — Alternative spelling of flavorlessness.
  • flavoursomeness — Alt form flavorsomeness.
  • flirtatiousness — The quality of being flirtatious.
  • floating screed — Building Trades. screed (def 3).
  • flood insurance — insurance covering loss or damage to property arising from a flood, flood tide, or the like.
  • floods of tears — If you say that someone was in floods of tears or in a flood of tears, you are emphasizing that they were crying with great intensity because they were very upset.
  • floor exercises — exercises designed to improve fitness, carried out on the floor
  • floral tributes — bunches or arrangements of flowers left as a memorial at the site of a fatal incident
  • floriferousness — Quality of being floriferous, or bearing many flowers.
  • flowerhorn fish — a brightly coloured cichlid fish with a large protuberance on the head
  • flowering shrub — any shrub that produces flowers
  • flowers of zinc — a white or yellowish-white, amorphous, odorless, water-insoluble powder, ZnO, used chiefly as a paint pigment, in cosmetics, dental cements, matches, white printing inks, and opaque glass, and in medicine in the treatment of skin conditions.
  • fluorochemicals — Plural form of fluorochemical.
  • fluorophosphate — a salt or ester of a fluorophosphoric acid.
  • flying fortress — a heavy bomber, the B-17, with four radial piston engines, widely used over Europe and the Mediterranean by the U.S. Air Force in World War II.
  • focusing screen — a camera in which the image appears on a ground-glass viewer (focusing screen) after being reflected by a mirror or after passing through a prism or semitransparent glass; in one type (single-lens reflex camera) light passes through the same lens to both the ground glass and the film, while in another type (twin-lens reflex camera) light passes through one lens (viewing lens) to the ground glass and through a second lens (taking lens) to the film, the lenses being mechanically coupled for focusing.
  • food insecurity — an economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.
  • food processing — transforming raw materials into food
  • fool's paradise — a state of enjoyment based on false beliefs or hopes; a state of illusory happiness.
  • for one's money — any circulating medium of exchange, including coins, paper money, and demand deposits.
  • for pity's sake — You can say for pity's sake to add emphasis to what you are saying, especially when you are annoyed or upset.
  • for some reason — for an unknown reason
  • for the present — being, existing, or occurring at this time or now; current: increasing respect for the present ruler of the small country.
  • for the sake of — for the good of
  • for their pains — You say that something was all you got for your pains when you are mentioning the disappointing result of situation into which you put a lot of work or effort.
  • force the issue — to compel decision on some matter
  • forecastle deck — a partial weather deck on top of a forecastle superstructure; topgallant forecastle.
  • forecastle head — the extreme fore part of a forecastle superstructure.
  • foreign affairs — politics: international relations
  • foreign mission — mission (def 10).
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