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17-letter words containing s, d, e

  • electrodeposition — The deposition of a metal on a cathode during electrolysis; used as a method of purification.
  • emissions trading — the buying and selling of allowances for pollutant emissions
  • employee discount — When the employees of a store or other retail business are entitled to an employee discount, they do not have to pay the full price for goods they buy in the store.
  • ends of the earth — remote regions
  • english shellcode — (security)   A kind of malware that is embedded in ordinary English sentences. English shellcode attempts to avoid detection by antivirus software by making the code resemble, e.g. e-mail text or Wikipedia entries. It was first revealed by researchers at Johns Hopkins.
  • enlarged prostate — disorder of male reproductive gland
  • escaping tendency — a property of a gas, related to its partial pressure, that expresses its tendency to escape or expand, given by d(log ef) = dμ/ RT, where μ is the chemical potential, R the gas constant, and T the thermodynamic temperature
  • esprit d'escalier — clever repartee one thinks of too late
  • ethinyloestradiol — Alternative form of ethinylestradiol.
  • eudoxus of cnidus — ?406–?355 bc, Greek astronomer and mathematician; believed to have calculated the length of the solar year
  • 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
  • exemplary damages — law: fine imposed as a deterrent
  • explosion welding — the welding of two parts forced together by a controlled explosion
  • extraordinariness — The property of being extraordinary.
  • facts and figures — details; precise information
  • 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.
  • fan-assisted oven — an electric oven in which a fan circulates the air and which uses both top and bottom heat
  • fancy dress party — a party at which the guests wear fancy dress
  • feasibility study — (systems analysis)   Part of the systems develpment life cycle which aims to determine whether it is sensible to develop some system. The most popular model of feasibility study is "TELOS", standing for Technical, Economic, Legal, Operational, Schedule. Technical Feasibility: does the technology exist to implement the proposed system? Is it a practical proposition? Economic Feasibility: is the system cost-effective? Do benefits outweigh costs? Legal Feasibility: is there any conflict between the proposed system and legal requirements, e.g. the Data Protection Act? Operational Feasibility: are the current work practices and procedures adequate to support the new system? Schedule Feasibility: can the system be developed in time? After the feasibility study, the requirements analysis should be carried out.
  • feathered friends — Birds are sometimes referred to as our feathered friends.
  • fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
  • field penny-cress — the common penny-cress, Thlaspi arvense.
  • field post office — a place to which mail intended for military units in the field is sent to be sorted and forwarded
  • 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.
  • find one's tongue — to recover the ability to talk, as after shock or embarrassment
  • firehose syndrome — (networking, jargon)   An absence, failure or inadequacy of flow control mechanisms causing the sender to overwhelm the receiver. The implication is that, like trying to drink from a firehose, the consequenses are worse than just loss of data, e.g. the receiver may crash. See ping-flood.
  • 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
  • first-degree burn — a burned place or area: a burn where fire had ripped through the forest.
  • first-order logic — (language, logic)   The language describing the truth of mathematical formulas. Formulas describe properties of terms and have a truth value. The following are atomic formulas: True False p(t1,..tn) where t1,..,tn are terms and p is a predicate. If F1, F2 and F3 are formulas and v is a variable then the following are compound formulas: The "order" of a logic specifies what entities "For all" and "Exists" may quantify over. First-order logic can only quantify over sets of atomic propositions. (E.g. For all p . p => p). Second-order logic can quantify over functions on propositions, and higher-order logic can quantify over any type of entity. The sets over which quantifiers operate are usually implicit but can be deduced from well-formedness constraints. In first-order logic quantifiers always range over ALL the elements of the domain of discourse. By contrast, second-order logic allows one to quantify over subsets.
  • five-spice powder — a mixture of spices used especially in Chinese cooking, usually including cinnamon, cloves, fennel seed, pepper, and star anise.
  • 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.
  • floppy disk drive — disk drive
  • follow the hounds — to hunt a fox, etc. on horseback with hounds
  • foot-pound-second — of or relating to the system of units in which the foot, pound, and second are the principal units of length, mass, and time. Abbreviation: fps, f.p.s.
  • 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.
  • forensic evidence — evidence obtained by the use of science, for example DNA evidence, etc
  • forensic medicine — the application of medical knowledge to questions of civil and criminal law, especially in court proceedings.
  • 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-eyed opossum — a small opossum, Metachirops (Philander) opossum, ranging from Mexico to Brazil, having a white spot above each eye.
  • four-letter words — any of a number of short words, usually of four letters, considered offensive or vulgar because of their reference to excrement or sex.
  • 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).
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