17-letter words containing s, e, a, o, f
- café-au-lait spot — a brown patch on the skin that can occur normally in small numbers or in neurofibromatosis, when they are more numerous
- calf's-foot jelly — a jelly made from the stock of boiled calves' feet and flavourings, formerly often served to invalids
- carbon offsetting — a program in which a company, country, etc., reduces or offsets its carbon emissions through the funding of activities and projects that improve the environment: Carbon offsetting does not always have a quantifiable impact on the planet.
- charter of rights — a section of the Canadian Constitution containing a statement of the basic rights of citizens of Canada.
- choanoflagellates — Plural form of choanoflagellate.
- comedie francaise — the French national theatre, founded in Paris in 1680
- comedy of manners — a comedy dealing with the way of life and foibles of a social group
- conscript fathers — august legislators, esp Roman senators
- consolidated fund — a fund into which tax revenue is paid in order to meet standing charges, esp interest payments on the national debt
- continental shelf — The continental shelf is the area which forms the edge of a continent, ending in a steep slope to the depths of the ocean.
- contraflow system — a system of traffic lanes whose normal direction is reversed to allow traffic to move during repairs or an accident
- corporal of horse — a noncommissioned rank in the British Household Cavalry above that of sergeant and below that of staff sergeant
- creature comforts — Creature comforts are the things that you need to feel comfortable in a place, for example good food and modern equipment.
- cross of lorraine — a cross with two horizontal bars above and below the midpoint of the vertical bar, the lower longer than the upper
- damp-proof course — A damp-proof course is the same as a damp course.
- 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.
- defamiliarisation — (arts) The representation of objects anew, in a way that we do not recognize, or that changes our reading of them.
- 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.
- deprofessionalise — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
- deprofessionalize — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
- deucalion's flood — a flood sent by Zeus that wiped out the entire population of the earth, except for Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha
- devil's food cake — a rich chocolate cake
- disidentification — The act of disidentifying, or rejecting a personal or group identity.
- dress-down friday — In some companies employees are allowed to wear clothes that are less smart than usual on a Friday. This day is known as a dress-down Friday.
- due course of law — the regular administration of the law, according to which no citizen may be denied his or her legal rights and all laws must conform to fundamental, accepted legal principles, as the right of the accused to confront his or her accusers.
- egg on one's face — embarrassment due to an obvious blunder
- ends of the earth — remote regions
- equation of state — any equation that expresses the relationship between the temperature, pressure, and volume of a substance
- facsimile catalog — a catalog that includes small reproductions of the items listed, as paintings, slides, designs, or the like.
- factory inspector — a person who inspects factories
- 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.
- 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.
- fall over oneself — to do everything within one's power
- fan-assisted oven — an electric oven in which a fan circulates the air and which uses both top and bottom heat
- fee-paying school — a school which charges fees to parents of pupils
- field sales force — a team of people selling a product or service in the field as opposed to over the telephone, etc
- first commandment — “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”: first of the Ten Commandments.
- first performance — the first time that a play or concert is performed
- fish out of water — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- fitness programme — a plan to help someone improve their health and physical condition
- flea in one's ear — a sharp rebuke
- 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.
- fluvioterrestrial — (of animals) able to live in rivers and on land
- foolscap envelope — an envelope of dimensions suitable to hold an unfolded sheet of foolscap paper
- footmen's gallery — the rearmost section of seats in the balcony of an English theater, especially in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
- for heaven's sake — expressing frustration
- for the most part — a portion or division of a whole that is separate or distinct; piece, fragment, fraction, or section; constituent: the rear part of the house; to glue the two parts together.
- 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.
- foreign relations — (used with a singular verb) the field of foreign affairs: an expert in foreign relations.