20-letter words containing a, b, c, t
- splice the mainbrace — to issue and partake of an extra allocation of alcoholic spirits
- spotted crane's-bill — the American wild geranium, Geranium maculatum.
- stare sb in the face — If a situation or the answer to a problem is staring you in the face, it is very obvious, although you may not be immediately aware of it.
- step into the breach — If you step into the breach, you do a job or task which someone else was supposed to do or has done in the past, because they are suddenly unable to do it.
- straight-cut tobacco — tobacco that is cut in such a way that it will lie flat.
- subjective idea-list — a doctrine that the world has no existence independent of sensations or ideas.
- subpoena duces tecum — a writ directing a person to appear in court and to bring some document described in the writ.
- subscription library — a commercial lending library
- switchboard operator — a person who operates an installation in a telephone exchange, office, hotel, etc, at which the interconnection of telephone lines is manually controlled
- tchebycheff equation — a differential equation of the form (1 − x 2) d 2 y/dx 2 − x dy/dx + n 2 y = 0, where n is any nonnegative integer.
- television broadcast — sth shown on tv
- tetrahydrocannabinol — a compound, C 21 H 30 O 2 , that is the physiologically active component in cannabis preparations (marijuana, hashish, etc.) derived from the Indian hemp plant or produced synthetically. Abbreviation: THC.
- the butterfat cheque — the total annual cash return for operations on a dairy farm
- the canterbury tales — an uncompleted sequence of tales by Chaucer, written for the most part after 1387.
- therapeutic abortion — abortion performed when a woman's pregnancy endangers her health.
- to blow hot and cold — If someone blows hot and cold, they keep changing their attitude towards something, sometimes being very enthusiastic and at other times expressing no interest at all.
- to catch your breath — If something makes you catch your breath, it makes you take a short breath of air, usually because it shocks you.
- to disturb the peace — If someone is accused of disturbing the peace, they are accused of behaving in a noisy and offensive way in public.
- to get off sb's back — If you tell someone to get off your back, you are telling them angrily to stop criticizing you or putting pressure on you.
- to get your own back — If you get your own back on someone, you have your revenge on them because of something bad that they have done to you.
- to keep your balance — If you keep your balance, for example, when standing in a moving vehicle, you remain steady and do not fall over. If you lose your balance, you become unsteady and fall over.
- to scrape the barrel — If you say that someone is scraping the barrel, or scraping the bottom of the barrel, you disapprove of the fact that they are using or doing something of extremely poor quality.
- tobacco mosaic virus — a retrovirus causing mosaic disease in members of the nightshade family. Abbreviation: TMV.
- toothbrush moustache — a short narrow moustache, resembling the filaments of a toothbrush
- tribromoacetaldehyde — bromal.
- tropical disturbance — a very weak, or incipient, tropical cyclone.
- united arab republic — a name given the union of Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961; after that, the official name of Egypt alone until 1971. Abbreviation: U.A.R.
- upper income bracket — a grouping of the highest earning tax payers
- vertical combination — the integration within one company of individual businesses working separately in related phases of the production and sale of a product.
- vertical lift bridge — lift bridge.
- war production board — the board (1942–45) that supervised and regulated the production and sale of matériel essential to the logistics of World War II. Abbreviation: WPB, W.P.B.
- wardrobe malfunction — an embarrassing situation caused by the clothes a person is wearing
- watch sb like a hawk — If you watch someone like a hawk, you observe them very carefully, usually to make sure that they do not make a mistake or do something you do not want them to do.
- watch someone's back — the rear part of the human body, extending from the neck to the lower end of the spine.
- webster's dictionary — Informal. a dictionary of the English language, especially American English, such as Dictionary.com.
- white bush (scallop) — a variety of summer squash having a saucer-shaped white fruit, scalloped around the edges
- yellow-breasted chat — an American warbler, Icteria virens, having a yellow throat and breast and greenish-brown upper parts and noted for imitating the songs of other species.