16-letter words containing a, b, l, n
- expansion bottle — a tank collecting coolant from a radiator while an engine is heated, and from which the coolant returns to the radiator when the engine cools
- experience table — an actuarial table, esp a mortality table based on past statistics
- family balancing — the choosing of the sex of a future child on the basis of how many children of each sex a family already has
- fancy dress ball — a ball at which the guests wear fancy dress
- fantasy baseball — imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
- fantasy football — imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
- feedback control — (electronics) A control system which monitors its effect on the system it is controlling and modifies its output accordingly. For example, a thermostat has two inputs: the desired temperature and the current temperature (the latter is the feedback). The output of the thermostat changes so as to try to equalise the two inputs. Computer disk drives use feedback control to position the read/write heads accurately on a recording track. Complex systems such as the human body contain many feedback systems that interact with each other; the homeostasis mechanisms that control body temperature and acidity are good examples.
- first balkan war — Balkan War (def 1).
- flabbergastation — (colloquial) Bewildered shock or surprise; the state or condition of being flabbergasted.
- flabbergastingly — Surprisingly, astonishingly or amazingly.
- flat-bed scanner — a type of optical scanner having a flat, stationary surface on which a page is scanned by a moving head.
- flying ambulance — an aircraft used to take sick or injured people to hospital
- freeboard length — the length of a vessel, measured on the summer load line from the fore side of the stem to some part of the stern, usually the after side of the rudderpost.
- frontal lobotomy — Surgery. a psychosurgical procedure in which the frontal lobes are separated from the rest of the brain by cutting the connecting nerve fibers.
- frontier orbital — the highest-energy occupied orbital or lowest-energy unoccupied orbital in a molecule. Such orbitals have a large influence on chemical properties
- fundamental bass — a bass consisting of the roots of the chords employed.
- galvanic battery — battery (def 1a).
- gas blowoff line — A gas blowoff line is a safety device to control sudden increases in pressure.
- general assembly — the legislature in some states of the U.S.
- generalisability — Non-Oxford British standard spelling of generalizability.
- generalizability — The quality of being generalizable.
- gingerbread palm — doom palm.
- gingerbread plum — a tree, Neocarya macrophylla, of western Africa, bearing a large, edible, starchy fruit.
- global community — the people or nations of the world, considered as being closely connected by modern telecommunications and as being economically, socially, and politically interdependent
- globigerina ooze — a calcareous deposit occurring upon ocean beds and consisting mainly of the shells of dead foraminifers, especially globigerina.
- go out on a limb — say sth daring
- granville-barker — Harley, 1877–1946, English dramatist, actor, and critic.
- great blue heron — a large American heron, Ardea herodias, having bluish-gray plumage.
- green vegetables — green edible plants
- gulf of martaban — an inlet of the Bay of Bengal in Myanmar
- gulf of san blas — an inlet of the Caribbean on the N coast of Panama
- half-blind joint — a corner dovetail joint visible on one face only.
- harleian library — a large library of manuscripts collected by the British statesman Robert Harley and his son and now housed in the British Museum.
- hebbian learning — (artificial intelligence) The most common way to train a neural network; a kind of unsupervised learning; named after canadian neuropsychologist, Donald O. Hebb. The algorithm is based on Hebb's Postulate, which states that where one cell's firing repeatedly contributes to the firing of another cell, the magnitude of this contribution will tend to increase gradually with time. This means that what may start as little more than a coincidental relationship between the firing of two nearby neurons becomes strongly causal. Despite limitations with Hebbian learning, e.g., the inability to learn certain patterns, variations such as Signal Hebbian Learning and Differential Hebbian Learning are still used.
- hemangioblastoma — (medicine) Any of several benign neoplasm tumours of the brain.
- hendecasyllables — Plural form of hendecasyllable.
- himalayan balsam — a tall flowering plant, Impatiens glandulifera, brought from Asia to Europe as a garden plant but now growing wild in Europe, especially on river banks. It is considered invasive and environmentally damaging.
- horsehead nebula — a dark nebula in the constellation Orion, composed of opaque cosmic dust and resembling the head of a horse.
- humanly possible — feasible, practical
- hyaloid membrane — the delicate, pellucid, and nearly structureless membrane enclosing the vitreous humor of the eye.
- hyperreal number — any of the set of numbers formed by the addition of infinite numbers and infinitesimal numbers to the set of real numbers
- icterine warbler — a European variety of tree warbler (Hippolais icterina )
- immeasurableness — The state or condition of being immeasurable.
- impenetrableness — The quality of being impenetrable.
- imperishableness — The characteristic or property of being imperishable.
- inaccessibleness — The quality or state of being inaccessible or unreachable.
- inapplicableness — The state or quality of being inapplicable; inapplicability.
- incommensurables — Plural form of incommensurable.
- inconceivability — (uncountable) The quality of being inconceivable.
- inconsolableness — The quality of being inconsolable.