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16-letter words containing a, b, i

  • busman's holiday — If you have a holiday, but spend it doing something similar to your usual work, you can refer to it as a busman's holiday.
  • butenedioic acid — either of two geometrical isomers with the formula HOOCCH:CHCOOH
  • buttercup family — the plant family Ranunculaceae, typified by mostly herbaceous plants having usually alternate leaves, multistaminate flowers sometimes lacking petals but with colorful sepals, and including the anemone, buttercup, clematis, columbine, delphinium, and monkshood.
  • buying behaviour — the behaviours displayed by consumers when they purchase things, such as preferences, price points, etc
  • bypass capacitor — a capacitor which provides a low-impedance path for alternating current while not passing any direct current
  • bypass operation — an operation involving redirection of blood flow, either to avoid a diseased blood vessel or in order to perform heart surgery
  • byzantine church — Orthodox Church (def 1).
  • byzantine empire — the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East, esp after the deposition of the last emperor in Rome (476 ad). It was finally extinguished by the fall of Constantinople, its capital, in 1453
  • cabinet minister — a minister who is a member of the cabinet
  • cable television — Cable television is a television system in which signals are sent along wires rather than by radio waves.
  • caducibranchiate — (of many amphibians, such as frogs) having gills during one stage of the life cycle only
  • can you beat it? — an expression of utter amazement or surprise
  • capacity booking — a time when someone has booked the whole of a venue or the maximum amount of something available
  • captive breeding — Captive breeding is the breeding of wild animals in places such as zoos, especially animals which have become rare in the wild.
  • carbon 14 dating — radiocarbon dating.
  • carbon bisulfide — carbon disulfide
  • carbon disulfide — a heavy, volatile, colorless liquid, CS2, highly flammable and poisonous, used as a solvent, insecticide, etc.
  • carbon footprint — Your carbon footprint is a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by your activities over a particular period.
  • carbon-14 dating — radiocarbon dating.
  • carboxypeptidase — any of several digestive enzymes that catalyze the removal of an amino acid from the end of a peptide chain having a free carbonyl group.
  • cardinal numbers — Also called cardinal numeral. any of the numbers that express amount, as one, two, three, etc. (distinguished from ordinal number).
  • cassia-bark tree — a lauraceous tree, Cinnamomum cassia, of eastern Asia.
  • catch sb napping — If someone is caught napping, something happens when they are not prepared for it, although they should have been.
  • celebrity status — the prominence of film star, footballer, musician etc who is constantly photographed and written about in tabloids and magazines
  • cepheid variable — any of a class of variable stars with regular cycles of variations in luminosity (most ranging from three to fifty days). There is a relationship between the periods of variation and the absolute magnitudes, which is used for measuring the distance of such stars
  • chafe at the bit — to be impatient or vexed, as because of delay
  • champ at the bit — If someone is champing at the bit or is chomping at the bit, they are very impatient to do something, but they are prevented from doing it, usually by circumstances that they have no control over.
  • charitable trust — a trust set up for the benefit of a charity that complies with the regulations of the Charity Commissioners to enable it to be exempt from paying income tax
  • chiclet keyboard — (hardware, abuse)   A keyboard with a small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like pieces of Chiclets chewing gum. Used especially to describe the original IBM PCjr keyboard. Vendors unanimously liked these because they were cheap, and a lot of early portable and laptop computers were launched with them. Customers rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and chiclets are not often seen on anything larger than a digital watch any more.
  • chilean firebush — South American shrub with scarlet flowers
  • chinese snowball — a Chinese shrub, Viburnum macrocephalum, of the honeysuckle family, having scurfy, hairy twigs, hairy leaves, and white flowers in large, showy, globelike clusters.
  • chomp at the bit — champ at the bit (see phrase under champ1)
  • christmas beetle — any of various greenish-gold Australian scarab beetles of the genus Anoplognathus, which are common in summer
  • chromatic number — (mathematics)   The smallest number of colours necessary to colour the nodes of a graph so that no two adjacent nodes have the same colour. See also: four colour map theorem.
  • chuvash republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga valley: generally low-lying with undulating plains and large areas of forest. Capital: Cheboksary. Pop: 1 313 900 (2002). Area: 18 300 sq km (7064 sq miles)
  • cigarette beetle — a small cylindrical beetle, Lasioderma serricorne, that is a pest, especially of dried tobacco.
  • circumambulating — Present participle of circumambulate.
  • circumambulation — The act of walking around something in a circle, especially for a ritual purpose.
  • city of aberdeen — a council area in NE Scotland, established in 1996. Pop: 206 600 (2003 est). Area: 186 sq km (72 sq miles)
  • clarified butter — butter with the water and milk solids removed, used for cooking at high temperatures without burning
  • clbuttic mistake — the humorous effect created by anti-obscenity filters that automatically replace offensive words in online articles with more acceptable variants
  • clinically obese — overweight to a degree which causes medical complications
  • cluster variable — RR Lyrae star.
  • cocktail cabinet — a cupboard in which glasses and bottles are kept
  • collaborationism — The act of collaborating, especially with an enemy.
  • collaborationist — A collaborationist government or individual is one that helps or gives support to the enemy during the war.
  • columbia heights — a city in SE Minnesota, near Minneapolis.
  • combination door — an outside door having a frame into which different types of panels can be inserted, as a screen for summer or storm sash for winter.
  • combination drug — a medication comprised of set dosages of two or more separate drugs.
  • combination last — a shoe last that has a narrower heel or instep than the standard last.
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