19-letter words containing a, l, b, o, n
- internal-combustion — of or relating to an internal-combustion engine.
- isobutyl propionate — a colorless liquid, C 7 H 14 O 2 , used chiefly as a paint, varnish, and lacquer solvent.
- isthmus of san blas — the narrowest part of the Isthmus of Panama. Width: about 50 km (30 miles)
- kellogg-briand pact — a treaty renouncing war as an instrument of national policy and urging peaceful means for the settlement of international disputes, originally signed in 1928 by 15 nations, later joined by 49 others.
- language laboratory — a special room or rooms with sound-recording and -reproducing equipment for use by students to practice speaking foreign languages, usually with an instructor monitoring the program.
- lean over backwards — to make a special effort, esp in order to please
- liberation theology — a 20th-century Christian theology, emphasizing the Biblical and doctrinal theme of liberation from oppression, whether racial, sexual, economic, or political.
- library of congress — one of the major library collections in the world, located in Washington, D.C., and functioning in some ways as the national library of the U.S. although not officially designated as such: established by Congress in 1800 for service to its members, but now also serving government agencies, other libraries, and the public.
- line-of-battle ship — ship of the line.
- load-bearing printf — (programming, humour) The kind of bug present in a program which works correctly when producing debug output but fails when the debugging is turned off. The expression combines load-bearing wall and printf as used in debugging by printf.
- logical unit number — (storage) (LUN) A 3-bit identifier used on a SCSI bus to distinguish between up to eight devices (logical units) with the same SCSI ID.
- look sb up and down — If someone looks you up and down, they direct their eyes from your head to your feet, in a rude and superior way and often as though they disapprove of you.
- malleable cast iron — white cast iron that has been malleablized.
- mary mcleod bethune — Mary McLeod [muh-kloud] /məˈklaʊd/ (Show IPA), 1875–1955, U.S. educator and civil-rights leader.
- monoclonal antibody — antibody produced by a laboratory-grown cell clone, either of a hybridoma or a virus-transformed lymphocyte, that is more abundant and uniform than natural antibody and is able to bind specifically to a single site on almost any chosen antigen or reveal previously unknown antigen sites: used as an analytic tool in scientific research and medical diagnosis and potentially important in the treatment of certain diseases. Abbreviation: MAb.
- mordvinian republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Saransk. Pop: 888 700 (2002). Area: 26 200 sq km (10 110 sq miles)
- municipal bond fund — a mutual fund that invests in municipal bonds.
- mutual masturbation — the act of two or more people masturbating each other
- national book award — any of several awards given annually, 1949–79, to an author whose book was judged the best in its category: administered by the Association of American Publishers. Abbreviation: NBA, N.B.A.
- national coal board — a statutory corporation set up to run Britain's nationalised coal mining industry between 1947 and 1994, at which time the industry was privatized
- negation by failure — An extralogical feature of Prolog and other logic programming languages in which failure of unification is treated as establishing the negation of a relation. For example, if Ronald Reagan is not in our database and we asked if he was an American, Prolog would answer "no".
- nominative absolute — a construction consisting in English of a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun in the nominative case followed by a predicate lacking a finite verb, used as a loose modifier of the whole sentence, as the play done in The play done, the audience left the theater.
- non-distinguishable — to mark off as different (often followed by from or by): He was distinguished from the other boys by his height.
- non-transferability — to convey or remove from one place, person, etc., to another: He transferred the package from one hand to the other.
- normal distribution — a theoretical frequency distribution represented by a normal curve.
- not by a long chalk — by no means; not possibly
- not by a long sight — on no account; not at all
- observation balloon — a balloon that is used for gathering information and reconnaissance purposes and spotting aircraft
- obsolescence clause — a clause in an insurance policy that takes account of the obsolescence of the item insured in order to lower the amount to be paid out in the event of a claim
- on someone's behalf — in / on behalf of, as a representative of or a proxy for: On behalf of my colleagues, I address you tonight.
- on the baker's list — in good health
- once in a blue moon — very rarely; almost never
- own flesh and blood — If you say that someone is your own flesh and blood, you are emphasizing that they are a member of your family.
- oxyacetylene burner — a blowpipe for cutting or welding metals at high temperatures
- palaeoethnobotanist — someone who studies fossil seeds and grains to further archaeological knowledge, esp of the domestication of cereals
- paradichlorobenzene — a white, crystalline, volatile, water-insoluble solid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , of the benzene series, having a penetrating odor: used chiefly as a moth repellent.
- party-column ballot — Indiana ballot.
- personal belongings — possessions; things that belong to someone
- phenylthiocarbamide — a crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid, C 6 H 5 NHCSNH 2 , that is either tasteless or bitter, depending upon the heredity of the taster, and is used in medical genetics and as a diagnostic.
- phthalocyanine blue — a pigment used in painting, derived from copper phthalocyanine and characterized chiefly by its brilliant, dark-blue color and by permanence.
- pointe-aux-trembles — a city in S Quebec, in E Canada, N of Montreal, on the St. Lawrence.
- polyclonal antibody — a mixture of antibodies of different specificities, as in the serum of a person immunized to various antigens.
- postal savings bank — any of the savings banks formerly operated by local post offices and limited to small accounts.
- provably unsolvable — The set or property of problems for which no algorithm at all exists. E.g. the Halting Problem. See also provably difficult.
- rag-tag and bobtail — the riffraff; rabble: The ragtag and bobtail of every nation poured into the frontier in search of gold.
- relational database — an electronic database comprising multiple files of related information, usually stored in tables of rows (records) and columns (fields), and allowing a link to be established between separate files that have a matching field, as a column of invoice numbers, so that the two files can be queried simultaneously by the user.
- republic of ireland — John, 1838–1918, U.S. Roman Catholic clergyman and social reformer, born in Ireland: archbishop of St. Paul, Minn., 1888–1918.
- republic of vietnam — the name (from 1955–75) for South Vietnam, as an independent republic, following the division of the country in 1954 into North Vietnam and South Vietnam
- reversible reaction — a reaction that, depending on ambient conditions, can proceed in either of two directions: the production of the reaction products from the reactants, or the production of the original reactants from the formed reaction products. Compare equilibrium (def 4).
- seat belt tensioner — A seat belt tensioner is a device in a vehicle that pulls a seat belt tight if there is a sudden movement or stop.