16-letter words containing a, b, n, o, r
- bathroom cabinet — a wall-mounted cabinet in a bathroom, typically with a mirror front and used for the storage of medicines and toiletries
- batlle y ordonez — José [haw-se] /hɔˈsɛ/ (Show IPA), 1856–1929, Uruguayan statesman: president of Uruguay 1903–07, 1911–15.
- bayonet practice — drill in the use of a bayonet
- be on the market — to be offered for sale
- bear one's cross — a structure consisting essentially of an upright and a transverse piece, used to execute persons in ancient times.
- behavior pattern — a recurrent way of acting by an individual or group toward a given object or in a given situation.
- behavioural sink — a small area in which people or animals live in overcrowded conditions
- bells of ireland — an annual garden plant, Moluccella laevis, whose flowers have a green cup-shaped calyx: family Lamiaceae (labiates)
- beneficial owner — a person entitled to receive the profits or proceeds of property
- beta abstraction — [lambda-calculus] The conversion of an expression to an application of a lambda abstraction to an argument expression. Some subterm of the original expression becomes the argument of the abstraction and the rest becomes its body. E.g. 4+1 --> (\ x . x+1) 4 The opposite of beta abstraction is beta reduction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion.
- bidirectionality — capable of reacting or functioning in two, usually opposite, directions.
- bihar and orissa — a former province of NE India: now divided into the states of Bihar and Odisha (formerly Orissa).
- binary operation — a mathematical operation in which two elements are combined to yield a single result: Addition and multiplication are binary operations on the set of real numbers.
- binocular fusion — fusion (def 5a).
- binocular-fusion — the act or process of fusing; the state of being fused.
- binomial theorem — a mathematical theorem that gives the expansion of any binomial raised to a positive integral power, n. It contains n + 1 terms: (x + a)n = xn + nxn–1a + [n(n–1)/2] xn–2a2 +…+ (nk) xn–kak + … + an, where (nk) = n!/(n–k)!k!, the number of combinations of k items selected from n
- biodeterioration — biodegradation.
- bioenvironmental — pertaining to the environment of living organisms: Bioenvironmental engineers seek to reduce air and water pollution.
- biofortification — the process of breeding staple crops to have higher levels of essential nutrients, either through selective breeding or genetic modification: iron biofortification of rice; biofortification of wheat with zinc.
- birthday honours — (in Britain) honorary titles conferred on the official birthday of the sovereign
- bitterroot range — range of the Rocky Mountains, along the Ida.-Mont. border: highest peak, c. 11,000 ft (3,353 m)
- black propaganda — propaganda that does not come from the source it claims to come from
- bleaching powder — a white powder with the odour of chlorine, consisting of chlorinated calcium hydroxide with an approximate formula CaCl(OCl).4H2O. It is used in solution as a bleaching agent and disinfectant
- blink comparator — an optical instrument used to detect small differences in two photographs of the same field or object by viewing them alternately, switching rapidly from one to the other.
- blue dawn-flower — a tropical American vine, Ipomoea acuminata, of the morning glory family, having large, funnel-shaped flowers that turn from blue to pink.
- bluegrass region — a region in central Kentucky, famous for its horse farms and fields of bluegrass.
- board and batten — a siding consisting of wide boards or of sheets of plywood set vertically with butt joints covered by battens.
- board of inquiry — a group set up to inquire into accidents, etc
- board of pardons — an agency that determines which prisoners are to be released on parole or discretionary mandatory supervision and recommends pardons
- boarding kennels — a place where dog owners can pay to have their dogs looked after while they are away
- boarding officer — a coastguard who boards ships suspected of carrying illegal cargoes or posing a security risk
- bon gre, mal gre — whether willing or not; willy-nilly.
- bonded warehouse — a warehouse in which dutiable goods are deposited until duty is paid or the goods are cleared for export
- bonhomme richard — the flagship of John Paul Jones.
- boolean-operator — any operation in which each of the operands and the result take one of two values.
- bornholm disease — an epidemic virus infection characterized by pain round the base of the chest
- boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
- boston tea party — a raid in 1773 made by citizens of Boston (disguised as Indians) on three British ships in the harbour as a protest against taxes on tea and the monopoly given to the East India Company. The contents of several hundred chests of tea were dumped into the harbour
- botanical garden — a place where collections of plants and trees are kept for scientific study and exhibition
- boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
- bracknell forest — a unitary authority in SE England, in E Berkshire. Pop: 110 100 (2003 est). Area: 109 sq km (42 sq miles)
- brain aid prolog — (language) (BAP) A parallel Prolog environment for transputer systems by Frank Bergmann <[email protected]>, Martin Ostermann <[email protected]>, and Guido von Walter <[email protected]> of Brain Aid Systems GbR. BAP is based on a model of communicating sequential Prolog processes. The run-time system consists of a multi-process operating system with support for several applications running concurrently.
- branchial groove — one of a series of rudimentary depressions on the surface of the embryo between adjacent branchial arches, homologous to the branchial clefts of gill-breathing ancestral forms.
- branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
- break new ground — to do something that has not been done before
- break one's back — to overwork or work very hard
- break one's fast — to eat food for the first time after fasting, or for the first time in the day
- break one's neck — to exert oneself greatly, esp by hurrying, in order to do something
- break one's word — to fail to keep one's promise
- break-even point — When a company reaches break-even point, the money it makes from the sale of goods or services is just enough to cover the cost of supplying those goods or services, but not enough to make a profit.