14-letter words containing a, b, s, i
- bipartisanship — representing, characterized by, or including members from two parties or factions: Government leaders hope to achieve a bipartisan foreign policy.
- bipolarisation — the act of bipolarising
- bird sanctuary — an area of land in which birds are protected and encouraged to breed
- birds and bees — any warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, having a body covered with feathers, forelimbs modified into wings, scaly legs, a beak, and no teeth, and bearing young in a hard-shelled egg.
- biscuit barrel — an airtight container of circular section equipped with a lid and used for storing biscuits
- bisphosphonate — any drug of a class that inhibits the resorption of bone; used in treating certain bone disorders, esp osteoporosis
- bitmap display — (hardware) A computer output device where each pixel displayed on the monitor screen corresponds directly to one or more bits in the computer's video memory. Such a display can be updated extremely rapidly since changing a pixel involves only a single processor write to memory compared with a terminal or VDU connected via a serial line where the speed of the serial line limits the speed at which the display can be changed. Most modern personal computers and workstations have bitmap displays, allowing the efficient use of graphical user interfaces, interactive graphics and a choice of on-screen fonts. Some more expensive systems still delegate graphics operations to dedicated hardware such as graphics accelerators. The bitmap display might be traced back to the earliest days of computing when the Manchester University Mark I(?) computer, developed by F.C. Williams and T. Kilburn shortly after the Second World War. This used a storage tube as its working memory. Phosphor dots were used to store single bits of data which could be read by the user and interpreted as binary numbers.
- bitter cassava — a species of cassava (Manihot esculenta) whose poisonous roots when processed yield tapioca starch
- black as night — totally dark
- black diamonds — carbonado1 .
- black selenium — an allotropic form of selenium occurring as a black, amorphous, water-insoluble, light-sensitive powder: used chiefly in photoelectric cells.
- black skipjack — a small spotted tuna, Euthynnus yaito, of Indo-Pacific seas
- black squirrel — a fox squirrel or gray squirrel in that color phase in which the fur is black.
- blacktip shark — a widely distributed sand shark, Charcharinus limbatus, having fins that appear to have been dipped in ink, inhabiting shallow waters of warm seas.
- blade-shearing — the shearing of sheep using hand shears
- blanket finish — a finish so close that a blanket would cover all the contestants involved
- blanket stitch — a strong reinforcing stitch for the edges of blankets and other thick material
- blanket-stitch — a basic sewing stitch in which widely spaced, interlocking loops, or purls, are formed, used for cutwork, as a decorative finish for edges, etc.
- blind as a bat — having extremely poor eyesight
- blind staggers — the staggers
- blind stamping — an impression on a book cover without using colour or gold leaf
- blister-packed — presented in a blister pack
- block capitals — Block capitals are simple capital letters that are not decorated in any way.
- block sampling — the selection of a corpus for statistical literary analysis by random selection of a starting point and consideration of the continuous passage following it
- blue mountains — a mountain range in the US, in NE Oregon and SE Washington. Highest peak: Rock Creek Butte, 2773 m (9097 ft)
- boarding house — A boarding house is a house which people pay to stay in for a short time.
- boatswain bird — tropic bird.
- bobo-dioulasso — a city in W Burkina Faso. Pop: 396 000 (2005 est)
- body mechanics — body exercises that are intended to improve one's posture, stamina, poise, etc.
- body snatching — the act or practice of robbing a grave to obtain a cadaver for dissection.
- bolshoi ballet — a ballet company founded in Moscow in 1776.
- border disease — a congenital infectious disease of sheep and goats caused by a Togavirus and characterized by abortion, infertility, and deformity of lambs
- bowling crease — a line marked at the wicket, over which a bowler must not advance fully before delivering the ball
- braddock hills — a town in SE Pennsylvania.
- branchiostegal — of or relating to the operculum covering the gill slits of fish
- brandy snifter — snifter (def 1).
- brass farthing — something of little or no value
- braunschweiger — a smoked liver sausage, named after the city of Braunschweig
- brazing solder — an alloy of copper and zinc for joining two metal surfaces by melting the alloy so that it forms a thin layer between the surfaces
- breakfast time — Breakfast time is the period of the morning when most people have their breakfast.
- breast implant — an object such as a sachet filled with gel introduced surgically into a woman's breast to enlarge it
- breast-beating — public or ostentatious expression of guilt, remorse, or sorrow
- breast-feeding — to nurse (a baby) at the breast; suckle.
- brewer's grain — an exhausted malt occurring as a by-product of brewing and used as a feedstuff for cattle, pigs, and sheep
- brewster chair — a chair of 17th-century New England having heavy turned uprights with vertical turned spindles filling in the back, the space beneath the arms, and the spaces between the legs.
- bridge passage — bridge1 (def 7).
- bring onstream — To bring onstream a plant, mine, oilfield, etc. is to start production there.
- british dollar — any of several coins formerly issued by the British Empire for use in certain territories, as the Straits dollar or the Hong Kong dollar.
- british guiana — Guyana
- british malaya — a comprehensive term for the former British possessions on the Malay Peninsula and the Malay Archipelago: now part of Malaysia.