17-letter words containing y, r
- 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
- floppy disk drive — disk drive
- 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 love or money — If you cannot or will not do something for love or money, you are completely unable to do it or you do not intend to do it.
- forcing frequency — the frequency of an oscillating force applied to a system
- foreign secretary — foreign minister.
- forever and a day — without ever ending; eternally: to last forever.
- four-eyed opossum — a small opossum, Metachirops (Philander) opossum, ranging from Mexico to Brazil, having a white spot above each eye.
- four-part harmony — harmony in which each chord has four tones, creating, in sum, four melodic lines.
- four-rowed barley — a class of barley having, in each spike, six rows of grain, with two pairs of rows overlapping.
- 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.
- fraternal society — a club or other association, usually of men, having a limited membership and devoted to professional, religious, charitable, or social activities.
- free-body diagram — A free-body diagram is a diagram of a structure in which all supports are replaced by forces.
- frequency polygon — a frequency curve consisting of connected line segments formed by joining the midpoints of the upper edges of the rectangles in a histogram whose class intervals are of uniform length.
- friend of dorothy — a male homosexual
- front-end payment — a payment required or incurred in advance of a project in order to get it under way
- front-line player — a regular player on a sports team or one who plays in the farthest forward position
- funicular railway — a short, very steep railway having two parallel sets of tracks, upon each of which runs a car or train raised or lowered by means of a cable that simultaneously lowers or raises the other car or train in such a way that the two are approximately counterbalanced.
- gamblers' fallacy — the fallacy that in a series of chance events the probability of one event occurring increases with the number of times another event has occurred in succession
- gamma-ray burster — a source of gamma-ray bursts
- garden strawberry — a plant which has white flowers and red edible fruits and is spread by runners, Fragaria ananassa
- garlic mayonnaise — mayonnaise flavoured with garlic
- gastroenterostomy — the making of a new passage between the stomach and the duodenum (gastroduodenostomy) or, especially, the jejunum (gastrojejunostomy)
- gastrojejunostomy — See under gastroenterostomy.
- general paralysis — a syphilitic brain disorder characterized by chronic inflammation and degeneration of cerebral tissue resulting in mental and physical deterioration.
- general secretary — the chief administrator of an organization
- geological survey — U.S. Government. a division of the Department of the Interior, created in 1879, that studies the nation's water and mineral resources, makes topographic surveys, and classifies and leases public lands.
- geothermal energy — Geothermal energy is energy from temperature differences inside the earth's crust.
- gibbs free energy — the thermodynamic function of a system that is equal to its enthalpy minus the product of its absolute temperture and entropy: a decrease in the function is equal to the maximum amount of work available exclusive of that due to pressure times volume change during a reversible, isothermal, isobaric process.
- glastonbury chair — a folding chair having legs crossed front-to-back and having arms connected to the back and to the front seat rail.
- 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.
- gnu privacy guard —
- go to the country — If a head of government or a government goes to the country, they hold a general election.
- great grey shrike — the bird Lanius excubitor
- 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.
- grey-faced petrel — a dark-coloured New Zealand petrel, Pterodroma macroptera gouldi
- guardhouse lawyer — a person in military service, especially an inmate of a guardhouse or brig, who is or claims to be an authority on military law, regulations, and soldiers' rights.
- gulf war syndrome — a group of symptoms occurring in some Gulf War veterans, most commonly including headache and memory loss, muscle pain, skin disorders, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and gastrointestinal and respiratory ailments, possibly caused by exposure to chemical weapons, vaccines, infectious diseases, or other factors.
- haematocrystallin — Alternative form of hematocrystallin.
- haemorrhoidectomy — surgical removal of haemorrhoids
- hairy-tailed mole — a blackish North American mole, Parascalops breweri, having a short, hairy tail.
- hard rock geology — (loosely) of or relating to igneous or metamorphic rocks, as in mining (hard-rock mining) and geology (hard-rock geology)
- harmonic analysis — the calculation of Fourier series and their generalization.
- harvey wallbanger — a screwdriver cocktail topped with Galliano.
- have a roving eye — to show a widespread amorous interest in the opposite sex
- health care proxy — a legal document in which a person can appoint someone to make decisions about medical treatment in the event that he or she is no longer mentally competent or able to communicate.
- heavy mineral oil — a colorless, oily, almost tasteless, water-insoluble liquid, usually of either a standard light density (light mineral oil) or a standard heavy density (heavy mineral oil) consisting of mixtures of hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum by distillation: used chiefly as a lubricant, in the manufacture of cosmetics, and in medicine as a laxative.
- henry cabot lodge — Henry Cabot, 1850–1924, U.S. public servant and author: senator 1893–1924.