18-letter words containing s, e, t, f
- first year infants — a class for young children who have just started school
- fishing expedition — a legal proceeding mainly for the purpose of interrogating an adversary, or of examining his or her property and documents, in order to gain useful information.
- fitness instructor — physical trainer, exercise teacher
- fitzwilliam museum — a museum, attached to Cambridge University and founded in 1816, noted esp for its paintings and collections devoted to the applied arts
- flame-of-the-woods — an Indian evergreen shrub, Ixora coccinea, of the madder family, having red, tubular flowers in dense clusters.
- flash butt welding — a method of welding metal edge-to-edge with a powerful electric flash followed by the application of pressure.
- flat address space — (architecture) The memory architecture in which any memory location can be selected from a single contiguous block by a single integer offset. Almost all popular processors have a flat address space, but the Intel x86 family has a segmented address space. A flat address space greatly simplifies programming because of the simple correspondence between addresses (pointers) and integers.
- flat file database — (database) A database containing a single table, stored in a single flat file, often in a human-readable format such as comma-separated values or fixed-width columns.
- flat on one's back — lying supine
- flat-panel display — a type of thin, lightweight video display that uses liquid crystals or electroluminescence to reflect images.
- flotsam and jetsam — the part of the wreckage of a ship and its cargo found floating on the water. Compare jetsam, lagan.
- fluorescent screen — a transparent screen coated on one side with a phosphor that fluoresces when exposed to X-rays or cathode rays
- football supporter — a person who supports a particular football team
- for the rest of us — (abuse) (From the Macintosh slogan "The computer for the rest of us") 1. Used to describe a spiffy product whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe spiffy but very overpriced products. 2. Describes a program with a limited interface, deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality, inability to compose primitives, or any other limitation designed to not "confuse" a naïve user. This places an upper bound on how far that user can go before the program begins to get in the way of the task instead of helping accomplish it. Used in reference to Macintosh software which doesn't provide obvious capabilities because it is thought that the poor luser might not be able to handle them. Becomes "the rest of *them*" when used in third-party reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program that superficially looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface flash. See also point-and-drool interface, user-friendly.
- forced perspective — the use of objects or images that are larger or smaller than they should be, to suggest that they are nearer or further away than they really are
- foreign investment — investment from foreign countries
- forensic chemistry — the application of facts concerning chemistry to questions of civil and criminal law.
- forensic scientist — science expert: provides evidence
- forethoughtfulness — The condition of being forethoughtful.
- fracture toughness — The fracture toughness of a material is how likely it is to resist fracture.
- french west africa — a former French federation in W Africa, including Dahomey (now Benin), French Guinea, French Sudan (now Mali), Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Upper Volta (now Burkina Fasso).
- french west indies — islands in the West Indies that belong to France, including two overseas departments (Martinique & Guadeloupe) & several former dependencies of Guadeloupe
- frequency spectrum — The frequency spectrum of an electrical signal is the distribution of the amplitudes and phases of each frequency component against frequency.
- from stem to stern — If something happens from stem to stern on a boat, it involves the whole of the boat.
- from the housetops — publicly and widely
- front of the house — façade of residential building, house front
- ftp software, inc. — (company) Developers of the original PC/TCP Packet Driver specification. Address: 26 Princess St. Wakefield, MA 01880-3004. Telephone: +1 (617) 246 0900.
- fu manchu mustache — a mustache whose ends droop to the chin.
- fuller rose beetle — a beetle, Pantomorus godmani, that feeds on the leaves of roses as well as on those of citrus and other fruit trees.
- functional disease — a disease in which there is an abnormal change in the function of an organ, but no structural alteration in the tissues involved (opposed to organic disease).
- functional testing — (testing) (Or "black-box testing", "closed-box testing") The application of test data derived from functional requirements without regard to how the system is implemented.
- funding operations — the conversion of government floating stock or short-term debt into holdings of long-term bonds
- garden loosestrife — any of various plants belonging to the genus Lysimachia, of the primrose family, having clusters of usually yellow flowers, as L. vulgaris (garden loosestrife) or L. quadrifolia (whorled loosestrife)
- german east africa — a former German territory in E Africa, the area now comprised of continental Tanzania and the independent republics of Rwanda and Burundi.
- get off one's bike — to lose one's self-control
- get one's feet wet — to begin to participate in something
- grandfather clause — U.S. History. a clause in the constitutions of some Southern states after 1890 intended to permit whites to vote while disfranchising blacks: it exempted from new literacy and property qualifications for voting those men entitled to vote before 1867 and their lineal descendants.
- granulated surface — a roughened surface
- grease the palm of — to influence by giving money to; bribe
- grist for the mill — If you say that something is grist for the mill, you mean that it is useful for a particular purpose or helps support someone's point of view.
- gulf saint vincent — a shallow inlet of SE South Australia, to the east of the Yorke Peninsula: salt industry
- gulf stream system — a major ocean-current system consisting of the Gulf Stream and the Florida and North Atlantic currents.
- headquarters staff — the people who work at the headquarters of an organization
- hearts and flowers — maudlin sentimentality: The play is a period piece, full of innocence abused and hearts and flowers.
- heat of combustion — the heat evolved when one mole of a substance is burnt in oxygen at constant volume
- hilary of poitiers — Saint, a.d. c300–368, French bishop and theologian.
- hippocratic facies — the sallow facial expression, with listless staring eyes, often regarded as denoting approaching death
- home of the hirsel — Baron, title of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, formerly 14th Earl of Home. 1903–95, British Conservative statesman: he renounced his earldom to become prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1963–64); foreign secretary (1970–74)
- house of delegates — the lower house of the General Assembly in Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland.
- house of detention — a place maintained by the civil authorities for persons charged with a crime, and sometimes for witnesses, awaiting trial.