12-letter words containing a, b, s
- brain teaser — A brain teaser is a question, problem, or puzzle that is difficult to answer or solve, but is not serious or important.
- brain-teaser — a puzzle or problem whose solution requires great ingenuity.
- brains trust — a group of knowledgeable people who discuss topics in public or on radio or television
- brainstormer — a person who brainstorms
- brainwashing — the process of brainwashing.
- brake assist — a part of a vehicle's braking system that automatically boosts braking pressure in an emergency situation
- brass plaque — a brass plate screwed to a wall or other structure and engraved with a name or other information, esp to commemorate an important event
- brass-collar — unwaveringly faithful to a political party; voting the straight ticket: a brass-collar Democrat.
- brassfounder — a person who makes things from brass
- braunschweig — Brunswick
- bread basket — If an area or region is described as the bread basket of a country, it provides a lot of the food for that country because crops grow very easily there. It therefore produces wealth for the country.
- bread-basket — a basket or similar container for bread or rolls.
- breast drill — a geared drill that can be braced against the chest for additional leverage.
- breast wheel — a waterwheel onto which the propelling water is fed at the height of a horizontal axle.
- breastplough — a plough driven by the worker's breast, often used to pare turf
- breaststroke — Breaststroke is a swimming stroke which you do lying on your front, moving your arms and legs horizontally in a circular motion.
- breastsummer — a girder extending across a large opening in a building to support the wall above, used primarily over shop-fronts
- breathalyser — a device for estimating the amount of alcohol in the breath: used in testing people suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol
- breathe easy — to take air, oxygen, etc., into the lungs and expel it; inhale and exhale; respire.
- breathlessly — without breath or breathing with difficulty; gasping; panting: We were breathless after the steep climb.
- brenner pass — a pass over the E Alps, between Austria and Italy. Highest point: 1372 m (4501 ft)
- bridal suite — a room or set of rooms in a hotel for newly married couples
- bright spark — If you say that some bright spark had a particular idea or did something, you mean that their idea or action was clever, or that it seemed clever but was silly in some way.
- brinkmanship — Brinkmanship is a method of behaviour, especially in politics, in which you deliberately get into dangerous situations which could result in disaster but which could also bring success.
- brisbane box — a broad-leaved evergreen tree, Tristania conferta, native to Australia, having a deciduous outer bark.
- british rail — the organization that ran the British railway system from 1948 until privatization in the mid-1990s
- british warm — an army officer's short thick overcoat
- brittle star — any echinoderm of the class Ophiuroidea, having the body composed of a central, rounded disk from which radiate long, slender, fragile arms.
- brittle-star — any echinoderm of the class Ophiuroidea, occurring on the sea bottom and having five long slender arms radiating from a small central disc
- broadcasting — Broadcasting is the making and sending out of television and radio programmes.
- broca's area — the region of the cerebral cortex of the brain concerned with speech; the speech centre
- bronchospasm — an abnormal contraction of the bronchi resulting in restriction of the airway
- brontosaurus — any very large herbivorous quadrupedal dinosaur of the genus Apatosaurus, common in North America during Jurassic times, having a long neck and long tail: suborder Sauropoda (sauropods)
- brooks range — a mountain range in N Alaska. Highest peak: Mount Isto, 2761 m (9058 ft)
- brooks's law — (programming) "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" - a result of the fact that the expected advantage from splitting work among N programmers is O(N) (that is, proportional to N), but the complexity and communications cost associated with coordinating and then merging their work is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the square of N). The quote is from Fred Brooks, a manager of IBM's OS/360 project and author of "The Mythical Man-Month". The myth in question has been most tersely expressed as "Programmer time is fungible" and Brooks established conclusively that it is not. Hackers have never forgotten his advice; too often, management still does. See also creationism, second-system effect, optimism.
- brushability — the quality of being brushable
- buccaneerish — of or relating to a buccaneer
- buck's party — a party for men only, esp one held for a man before he is married
- buenos aires — the capital of Argentina, a major port and industrial city on the Río de la Plata estuary: became capital in 1880; university (1821). Pop: 13 349 000 (2005 est)
- buffalo fish — any of a genus (Ictiobus) of large, humpbacked, freshwater sucker fishes found in North America
- buffel grass — grass used for pasture in Africa, India, and Australia
- buffer state — A buffer state is a peaceful country situated between two or more larger hostile countries.
- bull mastiff — a large powerful breed of dog with a short usually fawn or brindle coat, developed by crossing the bulldog with the mastiff
- bunco artist — a confidence trickster or con artist
- burkina faso — an inland republic in W Africa: dominated by Mossi kingdoms (10th–19th centuries); French protectorate established in 1896; became an independent republic in 1960; consists mainly of a flat savanna plateau. Official language: French; Mossi and other African languages also widely spoken. Religion: mostly animist, with a large Muslim minority. Currency: franc. Capital: Ouagadougou. Pop: 17 812 961 (2013 est). Area: 273 200 sq km (105 900 sq miles)
- burmese jade — jadeite of the finest quality: a true jade.
- burnt sienna — a reddish-brown dye or pigment obtained by roasting raw sienna in a furnace
- burro's tail — a succulent Mexican plant, Sedum morganianum, of the stonecrop family, bearing small, rose-colored flowers and long, hanging, nearly cylindrical stems with closely packed whitish-green leaves.
- burseraceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Burseraceae, a tropical family of trees and shrubs having compound leaves and resin or balsam in their stems. The family includes bdellium and some balsams
- bush leaguer — Also called busher. Baseball. a player in a minor league. an incompetent player, as one who behaves or plays as if he or she belonged in a minor league.