14-letter words containing a, b, y
- beauty pageant — A beauty pageant is the same as a beauty contest.
- beauty parlour — A beauty parlour is a place where women can go to have beauty treatments, for example to have their hair, nails or make-up done.
- becquerel rays — rays given off by radioactive substances
- belaya tserkov — city in WC Ukraine: pop. 204,000
- belaying cleat — a cleat used for belaying
- benday process — a process for adding tone or shading, as in reproducing drawings, by the overlay on the plate of patterns, as of dots
- benzyl acetate — a colorless liquid, C 9 H 10 O 2 , having a flowerlike odor: used chiefly for flavoring tobacco and in soaps and cosmetics.
- benzyl alcohol — a colorless, faintly aromatic, slightly water-soluble liquid, C 7 H 8 O, used chiefly as a solvent in the manufacture of perfumes and flavorings, and as an intermediate in the synthesis of benzyl esters and ethers.
- bertrand meyer — The author of the Eiffel Language and many articles on object-oriented software techniques.
- betray oneself — to reveal one's true character, intentions, etc
- beyond a doubt — to be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe.
- beyond compare — If you describe something as beyond compare, you mean that it is extremely good or extremely great.
- beyond measure — If you say that something has changed or that it has affected you beyond measure, you are emphasizing that it has done this to a great extent.
- bicycle-racing — the act or sport of riding or traveling by bicycle, motorcycle, etc.
- bidding prayer — the formal petitionary prayer, said especially in the Anglican Church immediately before the sermon.
- billy no-mates — a person with no friends
- binary counter — (electronics, hardware) A digital circuit which has a clock input and a number of count outputs which give the number of clock cycles. The output may change either on rising or falling clock edges. The circuit may also have a reset input which sets all outputs to zero when asserted. The counter may be either a synchronous counter or a ripple counter.
- binary fission — asexual reproduction in unicellular organisms by division into two daughter cells
- binary package — (software) An archive file that contains all files and directories that must be installed in order to make a working installation of the program(s) included in the package, and the maintainer scripts necessary for the installation. A binary package is usually specific to a certain platform, in contrast to a source package.
- bioarchaeology — the branch of archaeology that deals with the remains of living things
- bioclimatology — the study of the effects of climatic conditions on living organisms
- biosystematics — the study of the variation and evolution of a population of organisms in relation to their taxonomic classification
- biosystematist — someone who studies or works professionally in the field of biosystematics
- bird sanctuary — an area of land in which birds are protected and encouraged to breed
- birthday party — a party to celebrate someone's birthday
- 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.
- black mulberry — a small deciduous tree, Morus nigra, with small leaves, producing edible fruit
- black-eyed pea — Black-eyed peas are beige seeds with black marks that are eaten as a vegetable. They are from a plant called the cowpea.
- blankety-blank — damned
- blantyre-limbe — a city in S Malawi: largest city in the country; formed in 1956 from the adjoining towns of Blantyre and Limbe. Pop: 647 000 (2005 est)
- blended family — a social unit consisting of two previously married parents and the children of their former marriages
- blepharoplasty — cosmetic surgery performed on the eyelid
- bletchley park — the Buckinghamshire estate which was the centre of British code-breaking operations during World War II
- blue-arsed fly — a blowfly; bluebottle
- blue-eyed mary — a blue-flowered boraginaceous plant, Omphalodes verna, native to S Europe and cultivated in Britain
- boarding party — group of officers or sailors who board a ship
- body beautiful — a beautiful body
- body corporate — a group of persons incorporated to carry out a specific enterprise
- 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.
- bony labyrinth — an intricate combination of paths or passages in which it is difficult to find one's way or to reach the exit. Synonyms: maze, network, web.
- born yesterday — brought forth by birth.
- bornyl acetate — a colorless liquid, C 12 H 20 O 2 , having a piny, camphorlike odor, used chiefly as a scent in the manufacture of perfume, and as a plasticizer.
- bornyl alcohol — white solid alcohol from a Malaysian tree
- bornyl formate — a liquid, C 11 H 18 O 2 , having a piny odor, used chiefly as a scent in the manufacture of soaps and disinfectants.
- boulder canyon — a canyon of the Colorado River between Arizona and Nevada, above Boulder Dam.
- boundary fence — a fence between properties
- boundary layer — the layer of fluid closest to the surface of a solid past which the fluid flows: it has a lower rate of flow than the bulk of the fluid because of its adhesion to the solid
- boundary rider — an employee on a sheep or cattle station whose job is to maintain fences in good repair and to prevent stock from straying
- boundary value — boundary value analysis