17-letter words containing t, r, e, l
- flickertail state — North Dakota (used as a nickname).
- flight instrument — any instrument used to indicate the altitude, attitude, airspeed, drift, or direction of an aircraft.
- floating currency — a currency that is free to fluctuate against other currencies in accordance with market forces
- florentine stitch — a straight stitch worked in a high and low relief pattern to form a variety of zigzag or oblique designs.
- 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.
- fluorescent light — a fluorescent lamp in domestic or commercial use; a fluorescent strip
- fluorescent strip — a fluorescent light in the form of a long strip
- fluvioterrestrial — (of animals) able to live in rivers and on land
- follow the leader — a child's game in which players, one behind the other, follow a leader and must repeat or follow everything he or she does.
- 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 all the world — the earth or globe, considered as a planet.
- 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.
- fort leonard wood — a military reservation and U.S. Army training center in SW Missouri, SW of Rolla.
- fort walton beach — a city in NW Florida.
- fouquier-tinville — Antoine Quentin [ahn-twan kahn-tan] /ɑ̃ˈtwan kɑ̃ˈtɛ̃/ (Show IPA), 1747?–95, French revolutionist: prosecutor during the Reign of Terror.
- four on the floor — a four-speed manual transmission having the gearshift set into the floor.
- 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.
- four-on-the-floor — a four-speed manual transmission having the gearshift set into the floor.
- four-star general — high-ranking military officer
- four-stroke cycle — A four-stroke cycle is the cycle of engine operation which requires four strokes of the piston: for induction, compression, ignition, and exhaust.
- 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].
- fraternal society — a club or other association, usually of men, having a limited membership and devoted to professional, religious, charitable, or social activities.
- french revolution — the revolution that began in 1789, overthrew the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons and the system of aristocratic privileges, and ended with Napoleon's overthrow of the Directory and seizure of power in 1799.
- from pole to pole — throughout the entire world
- front-line player — a regular player on a sports team or one who plays in the farthest forward position
- front-wheel drive — a drive system in which engine power is transmitted through the front wheels only.
- frostbite sailing — the sport of sailing in temperate latitudes during the winter despite cold weather.
- full load current — A full load current is the largest current that a motor or other device is designed to carry under particular conditions.
- 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.
- furbish lousewort — any plant belonging to the genus Pedicularis, of the figwort family, as the wood betony, formerly supposed to cause lice in sheep feeding on it: one species, P. furbishiae (Furbish lousewort) of parts of Maine and New Brunswick, Canada, having finely toothed leaves and a cluster of yellow flowers, is endangered and was thought to be extinct until specimens were discovered in 1946 and again in 1976.
- garbage collector — refuse collector, dustman
- 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 secretary — the chief administrator of an organization
- 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.
- gentleman-at-arms — (in England) one of a guard of 40 gentlemen who attend the sovereign on state occasions.
- george whitefield — George, 1714–70, English Methodist evangelist.
- geothermal energy — Geothermal energy is energy from temperature differences inside the earth's crust.
- gestatorial chair — a ceremonial chair on which the pope is carried
- gigaelectron volt — one billion electron-volts. Abbreviation: GeV, Gev.
- give to the world — to publish
- globus hystericus — the sensation of having a lump in the throat or difficulty in swallowing for which no medical cause can be found.
- glory-of-the-snow — any of several plants belonging to the genus Chionodoxa, of the lily family, native to the Old World, having showy, blue, white, or pink flowers that bloom early in the spring.
- glove compartment — a compartment in the dashboard of an automobile for storing small items.