18-letter words containing u, t, f
- creeping featurism — (jargon) /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
- crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
- cultural diffusion — act of diffusing; state of being diffused.
- current efficiency — the ratio of the actual mass of a substance liberated from an electrolyte by the passage of current to the theoretical mass liberated according to Faraday's law
- curvature of field — a monochromatic aberration of a lens or other optical system in which the focal surface is curved, the refracted image of an object oriented perpendicular to the axis of the lens lying on a curved surface rather than in a plane perpendicular to the axis.
- curvature of space — (in relativity) a property of space near massive bodies in which their gravitational field causes light to travel along curved paths.
- defense calculator — IBM 701
- deficiency account — an account summarizing the financial condition of an individual or company in danger of bankruptcy.
- definitive plumage — the plumage of a bird that, once attained, does not change significantly in color or pattern for the rest of the bird's life.
- departure platform — a raised area at a railway station from which passengers can board trains prior to their departing
- dimethyl sulfoxide — DMSO.
- distress frequency — a radio frequency band reserved for emergency signals from aircraft or ships in distress.
- distributed eiffel — ["Distributed Eiffel: A Language for Programming Multi-Granular Distributed Objects on the Clouds Operating System", L. Gunaseelan et al, IEEE Conf Comp Langs, 1992].
- do oneself justice — If you do yourself justice, you do something as well as you are capable of doing it.
- dried-fruit beetle — a small beetle, Carpophilus hemipterus, of worldwide distribution, that infests ripe, dried, and fermenting fruits, especially figs and dates.
- duty-free shopping — the making of duty-free purchases
- dwarf storage unit — (humour) (DSU) An IBM term for a cupboard.
- dysfunctionalities — Plural form of dysfunctionality.
- electrical failure — an instance when an electricity supply stops working
- expected frequency — the number of occasions on which an event may be presumed to occur on average in a given number of trials
- fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
- fast-food industry — the industry surrounding fast-food restaurants
- federal funds rate — The federal funds rate is the overnight rate between banks.
- feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
- fehling's solution — a blue solution of copper sulfate, Rochelle salt, and sodium hydroxide, used to test for the presence of a sugar, aldehyde, etc.
- fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
- field of quotients — a field whose elements are pairs of elements of a given commutative integral domain such that the second element of each pair is not zero. The field of rational numbers is the field of quotients of the integral domain of integers.
- 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
- fitzwilliam museum — a museum, attached to Cambridge University and founded in 1816, noted esp for its paintings and collections devoted to the applied arts
- flash butt welding — a method of welding metal edge-to-edge with a powerful electric flash followed by the application of pressure.
- floating underflow — underflow
- 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.
- 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
- foundation garment — an undergarment, as a girdle or corset, worn by women to support or give shape to the contours of the body.
- foundling hospital — an institutional home for foundlings.
- 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.
- free-range poultry — poultry kept in natural nonintensive conditions
- frequency function — probability density function (def 2).
- frequency spectrum — The frequency spectrum of an electrical signal is the distribution of the amplitudes and phases of each frequency component against frequency.
- from hand to mouth — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
- from the ground up — the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground.