18-letter words containing t, o, r, f

farmer-labor party — a political party in Minnesota, founded in 1920 and merged with the Democratic Party in 1944.
fast-food industry — the industry surrounding fast-food restaurants
fatty degeneration — deterioration of the cells of the body, accompanied by the formation of fat globules within the diseased cells.
feast of orthodoxy — a solemn festival held on the first Sunday of Lent (Orthodoxy Sunday) commemorating the restoration of the use of icons in the church (a.d. 842) and the triumph over all heresies.
feather one's nest — one of the horny structures forming the principal covering of birds, consisting typically of a hard, tubular portion attached to the body and tapering into a thinner, stemlike portion bearing a series of slender, barbed processes that interlock to form a flat structure on each side.
federal government — pertaining to or of the nature of a union of states under a central government distinct from the individual governments of the separate states, as in federal government; federal system.
feldenkrais method — a system of gentle movements that promote flexibility, coordination, and self-awareness
fermat's last post — (humour) A post to a bug tracker, mailing list or forum in which the author claims to have found a simple fix or workaround for a bug, but never says what it is and never shows up again to explain it (even after others have been puzzling over the bug for years).
ferrite-rod aerial — a type of aerial, normally used in radio reception, consisting of a small coil of wire mounted on a ferrite core, the coil serving as a tuning inductance
fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
fifth monarchy men — (during the Commonwealth in the 17th century) a militant sect of Puritans who identified the fifth monarchy with the millennial reign of Christ and who believed they should help to inaugurate that reign by force.
file control block — (operating system) (FCB) An MS-DOS data structure that stores information about an open file. The number of FCBs is configured in CONFIG.SYS with a command FCBS=x,y where x (between 1 and 255 inclusive, default 4) specifies the number of file control blocks to allocate and therefore the number of files that MS-DOS can have open at one time. y (not needed from DOS 5.0 onward) specifies the number of files to be closed automatically if all x are in use.
fire and brimstone — When people talk about fire and brimstone, they are referring to hell and how they think people are punished there after death.
fire-and-brimstone — threatening punishment in the hereafter: a fire-and-brimstone sermon.
first and foremost — primarily
first class module — (programming) A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status.
first duke of york — a member of the royal house of England that ruled from 1461 to 1485.
first-in first-out — (algorithm) (FIFO, or "queue") A data structure or hardware buffer from which items are taken out in the same order they were put in. Also known as a "shelf" from the analogy with pushing items onto one end of a shelf so that they fall off the other. A FIFO is useful for buffering a stream of data between a sender and receiver which are not synchronised - i.e. not sending and receiving at exactly the same rate. Obviously if the rates differ by too much in one direction for too long then the FIFO will become either full (blocking the sender) or empty (blocking the receiver). A Unix pipe is a common example of a FIFO. A FIFO might be (but isn't ever?) called a LILO - last-in last-out. The opposite of a FIFO is a LIFO (last-in first-out) or "stack".
fitness instructor — physical trainer, exercise teacher
flat-bottomed rail — a rail having a cross section like an inverted T, with the top extremity enlarged slightly to form the head
floating partition — a partition running parallel to and between two joists and resting on blocking between them.
floating underflow — underflow
floating-rate note — a eurobond, often issued as a negotiable bearer bond, that has a floating rate of interest
flower arrangement — floral display
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 hell of it — the place or state of punishment of the wicked after death; the abode of evil and condemned spirits; Gehenna or Tartarus.
for the life of me — If you say that you cannot for the life of you understand or remember something, you are emphasizing that you cannot understand or remember it, even if you try hard.
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.
for the time being — the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.
forced development — the processing of underexposed photographic film to increase the image density
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
fore-edge painting — a technique of painting a picture on the fore edge of a book, often in such a manner that only when the pages are slightly fanned the picture is revealed.
foreign investment — investment from foreign countries
foreign-trade zone — free port (def 1).
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.
forget-me-not blue — a shade of blue similar to the shade of the flowers of a forget-me-not
forgive and forget — be reconciled
forward compatible — forward compatibility
foundation garment — an undergarment, as a girdle or corset, worn by women to support or give shape to the contours of the body.
fourth commandment — “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”: fourth of the Ten Commandments.
fourth normal form — database normalisation
fracture toughness — The fracture toughness of a material is how likely it is to resist fracture.
fragmentation bomb — a bomb designed to break into many small, high-velocity fragments when detonated.
free-range poultry — poultry kept in natural nonintensive conditions
frequency function — probability density function (def 2).
fringe-toed lizard — an iguanid lizard, Uma notata, of sandy deserts of the western U.S. and Mexico, having a wedge-shaped snout and toes fringed with long, pointed scales.

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