17-letter words containing a, b, d, e
- double quatrefoil — a charge having the form of a foil with eight leaves, used especially as the cadency mark of a ninth son.
- double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.
- double track line — a railway line with double track
- douglas engelbart — (person) Douglas C. Engelbart, the inventor of the mouse. On 1968-12-09, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California, USA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the on live system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse, hypertext, object addressing, dynamic file linking and shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface. The original 90-minute video: Hyperlinks, Mouse, Web-board.
- downwardly mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
- downwardly-mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
- drive-by download — an incidence of an unwanted program being automatically downloaded to a computer, often without the user's knowledge
- dwarf huckleberry — tangleberry.
- economic blockade — an embargo on trade with a country, esp one which prohibits receipt of exports from that country, with the intention of disrupting the country's economy
- electricity board — a company which supplies electricity
- embroidery thread — a thread used for embroidery
- examination board — an organization that sets and corrects exams
- false bread-fruit — ceriman.
- feasibility study — (systems analysis) Part of the systems develpment life cycle which aims to determine whether it is sensible to develop some system. The most popular model of feasibility study is "TELOS", standing for Technical, Economic, Legal, Operational, Schedule. Technical Feasibility: does the technology exist to implement the proposed system? Is it a practical proposition? Economic Feasibility: is the system cost-effective? Do benefits outweigh costs? Legal Feasibility: is there any conflict between the proposed system and legal requirements, e.g. the Data Protection Act? Operational Feasibility: are the current work practices and procedures adequate to support the new system? Schedule Feasibility: can the system be developed in time? After the feasibility study, the requirements analysis should be carried out.
- federal land bank — a U.S. federal bank for making long-term loans to farmers.
- fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
- four-rowed barley — a class of barley having, in each spike, six rows of grain, with two pairs of rows overlapping.
- free-body diagram — A free-body diagram is a diagram of a structure in which all supports are replaced by forces.
- freedmen's bureau — an agency of the War Department set up in 1865 to assist freed slaves in obtaining relief, land, jobs, fair treatment, and education.
- garboard (strake) — the strake adjoining the keel
- garden strawberry — a plant which has white flowers and red edible fruits and is spread by runners, Fragaria ananassa
- go by the wayside — to be put aside on account of something more urgent
- 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.
- great st. bernard — Great, a mountain pass between SW Switzerland and NW Italy, in the Pennine Alps: Napoleon led his army through it in 1800; location of a hospice. 8108 feet (2470 meters) high.
- greater forkbeard — a fish of the Phycidae family
- greenland halibut — a flatfish, Reinhardtius hippoglossoides, similar and related to the halibut
- half-breadth plan — a diagrammatic plan of one half of the hull of a vessel divided lengthwise amidships, showing water lines, stations, diagonals, and bow and buttock lines.
- hard-shelled crab — a crab, esp. an edible sea crab, before it has shed its hard shell
- headline-grabbing — A headline-grabbing statement or activity is one that is intended to attract a lot of attention, especially from the media.
- henry cabot lodge — Henry Cabot, 1850–1924, U.S. public servant and author: senator 1893–1924.
- herbaceous border — A herbaceous border is a flower bed containing a mixture of plants that flower every year.
- hold one's breath — If you say that someone is holding their breath, you mean that they are waiting anxiously or excitedly for something to happen.
- hottentot's bread — elephant's-foot.
- humpbacked bridge — A humpbacked bridge or humpback bridge is a short and very curved bridge with a shape similar to a semi-circle.
- hybrid fiber coax — (networking) (HFC) A kind of physical connection used in networks for audio, video, and data. DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) is used in Europe and DOCSIS is used in N America.
- i beg your pardon — You say 'Pardon?' or 'I beg your pardon?' or, in American English, 'Pardon me?' when you want someone to repeat what they have just said because you have not heard or understood it.
- i can't be fagged — I can't be bothered
- imitation doublet — a doublet formed entirely of glass.
- in double harness — in a harness for two animals pulling the same carriage, plow, etc.
- in the background — behind the focus of attention
- incubation period — the period between infection and the appearance of signs of a disease.
- indecipherability — Quality of being indecipherable.
- indefatigableness — The state of being indefatigable.
- indescribableness — The quality of being indescribable.
- indian strawberry — a plant, Duchesnea indica, of the rose family, native to India, having yellow flowers and inedible fruit resembling strawberries.
- indispensableness — The characteristic of being indispensable; indispensability.
- indistinguishable — not distinguishable.
- interdental brush — a small brush that is used to clean between the teeth
- invincible armada — Armada.
- joachim du bellay — Joachim [French zhaw-a-keem] /French ʒɔ aˈkim/ (Show IPA), Bellay, Joachim du.