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| Word | Meaning | Eponym |
| Fahrenheit | A system of temperature measure according to which water freezes at 32o and boils at 212o. | Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (1686-1736), the German instrument maker who made the first reliable thermometers, providing him with the scale that now bears his name. |
| farad | A unit of electrical capacitance. | Michael Faraday (1791-1867), the British physicist who discovered electromagnetic induction (1831) and first suggested the field theory developed later by Maxwell and Einstein. |
| faraday | A unit of electricity. | Michael Faraday (1791-1867), British physicist who discovered electromagnetic induction (1831) and first suggested the field theory developed later by Maxwell and Einstein. |
| fauna | The animal kingdom, all animals taken together. | Faunus, the Roman god of pastures and forests. |
| fermi | A metric unit of length equal to one quadrillionth of a meter | Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), Italian-born American physicist known for his work on quantum theory and the first nuclear reactor. |
| Ferris wheel | A large vertical wheel at amusement parks with seats around its rim. | US engineer George W. G. Ferris (1859-1896), who designed the first one for the Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago, 1893. It was 250 feet tall. |
| filbert | A hazel nut. | Saint Philbert (died 684), a Frankish abbot whose feast day (August 22) marks the ripening season of this nut. |
| flora | Vegetation, all vegetation taken together or all in a specific region (the flora of Pennsylvania). | Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers. |
| forsythia | An early-blooming plant with long radiating spears of bright yellow flowers in the spring. | William Forsyth (1737-1804), a Scottish botanist and horticulturist who was a royal head gardener and a founding member of the Royal Horticultural Society. |
| frangipani | 1. The temple tree: a shrub with milky sap and showy, fragrant, variously colored flowers. 2. An almond-flavored cream pastry filling. | Marquis Frangipani, 16th century Italian nobleman who created a perfume for scenting gloves in the 16th century. |
| freesia | A South African plant with one-sided clusters of fragrant, multicolored flowers. | Friedrich Heinrich Theodor Freese (d.1876), a German physician. |
| fresnel | A unit of frequency, equivalent to 1012 hertz. | Augustin Jean Fresnel (1788-1827), the French physicist who first created polarized light and invented the Fresnel lens. |
| Friday | The sixth day of the week between Thursday and Saturday. | Frig(ga), Norse goddess of marital affection. |
| fuchsia | An ornamental shrub with hanging clusters of red-magenta-purple flowers. | Leonard Fuchs (1501-1566), a German botanist and physician who wrote a popular book on collecting medicinal plants with beautiful drawings of the plants. |
| furphy | A bit of gossip, a rumor or fanciful story. | The Furphy family of Victoria, Australia, manufacturer of Furphy mobile water tanks around which troops gathered and exchanged gossip during World War I. |
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