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17-letter words containing t, a, l, r, i

  • ferroelectric ram — Ferroelectric Random Access Memory
  • fifth normal form — database normalisation
  • financial futures — futures in a stock-exchange index, currency exchange rate, or interest rate enabling banks, building societies, brokers, and speculators to hedge their involvement in these markets
  • fingerling potato — a finger-shaped potato
  • first call on sth — If you have first call on something, you will be asked before anyone else whether you want to buy or use it.
  • first normal form — database normalisation
  • first-aid classes — classes which teach people how to give immediate medical help in an emergency
  • flagrante delicto — Law. in the very act of committing the offense.
  • flickertail state — North Dakota (used as a nickname).
  • floating currency — a currency that is free to fluctuate against other currencies in accordance with market forces
  • floating dry dock — a dock that floats and can be lowered in the water for the entrance of a ship, and then raised for use as a dry dock
  • flowering currant — an ornamental shrub, Ribes sanguineum, growing to 2 to 3 metres (6 to 9ft) in height, with red, crimson, yellow, or white flowers: family Saxifragaceae
  • flowering tobacco — any plant belonging to the genus Nicotiana, of the nightshade family, as N. alata and N. sylvestris, having clusters of fragrant flowers that usually bloom at night, grown as an ornamental.
  • fluid lubrication — lubrication in which bearing surfaces are separated by an oil film sustained by the motion of the parts
  • fluvioterrestrial — (of animals) able to live in rivers and on land
  • 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.
  • formative element — a morpheme that serves as an affix, not as a base, or root, in word formation.
  • 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].
  • fractionalization — Separation into parts by fractionalizing.
  • fraternal society — a club or other association, usually of men, having a limited membership and devoted to professional, religious, charitable, or social activities.
  • front-line player — a regular player on a sports team or one who plays in the farthest forward position
  • frostbite sailing — the sport of sailing in temperate latitudes during the winter despite cold weather.
  • functional isomer — any of several structural isomers that have the same molecular formula but with the atoms connected in different ways and therefore falling into different functional groups.
  • garden heliotrope — the common valerian, Valeriana officinalis, especially when cultivated as an ornamental.
  • genealogical tree — family tree.
  • general sarmiento — a city in E Argentina, a suburb of Buenos Aires.
  • general semantics — a philosophical approach to language, developed by Alfred Korzybski, exploring the relationship between the form of language and its use and attempting to improve the capacity to express ideas.
  • generalized other — an individual's internalized impression of societal norms and expectations.
  • genetic algorithm — (GA) An evolutionary algorithm which generates each individual from some encoded form known as a "chromosome" or "genome". Chromosomes are combined or mutated to breed new individuals. "Crossover", the kind of recombination of chromosomes found in sexual reproduction in nature, is often also used in GAs. Here, an offspring's chromosome is created by joining segments choosen alternately from each of two parents' chromosomes which are of fixed length. GAs are useful for multidimensional optimisation problems in which the chromosome can encode the values for the different variables being optimised.
  • gestatorial chair — a ceremonial chair on which the pope is carried
  • gigaelectron volt — one billion electron-volts. Abbreviation: GeV, Gev.
  • glastonbury chair — a folding chair having legs crossed front-to-back and having arms connected to the back and to the front seat rail.
  • go the extra mile — make an exceptional effort
  • goldbeater's skin — the prepared outside membrane of the large intestine of the ox, used by goldbeaters to lay between the leaves of the metal while they beat it into gold leaf.
  • golf ball printer — IBM 2741
  • good-time charlie — an affable, sociable, pleasure-loving man.
  • grand climacteric — Physiology. a period of decrease of reproductive capacity in men and women, culminating, in women, in the menopause.
  • grapefruit league — a series of training games played by major-league teams before the opening of the season (so named because they take place in the citrus-growing South, as in Florida).
  • great rift valley — a series of rift valleys running from N to S, from the Jordan Valley in SW Asia to Mozambique in SE Africa.
  • great vowel shift — a series of changes in the quality of the long vowels between Middle and Modern English as a result of which all were raised, while the high vowels (ē) and (o̅o̅), already at the upper limit, underwent breaking to become the diphthongs (ī) and (ou).
  • great willow herb — either of two tall, large-flowered willow herbs, Epilobium angustifolium or E. hirsutum.
  • greater celandine — celandine (def 1).
  • green-winged teal — a small freshwater duck, Anas crecca, of Eurasia and North America, having an iridescent green speculum in the wing.
  • greenland halibut — a flatfish, Reinhardtius hippoglossoides, similar and related to the halibut
  • guardian ad litem — a person appointed by a court as guardian of an infant or other person to act on his or her behalf in a particular action or proceeding.
  • guerrilla theater — the presentation of short propaganda plays or skits, usually on sociopolitical themes, as war or repression, often on the streets or in other nontheater locations.
  • haematocrystallin — Alternative form of hematocrystallin.
  • haemoglobinometer — an instrument used to determine the haemoglobin content of blood
  • hairline fracture — a very fine crack in a bone
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