16-letter words containing a, l, b, u
- ordinary jubilee — the celebration of any of certain anniversaries, as the twenty-fifth (silver jubilee) fiftieth (golden jubilee) or sixtieth or seventy-fifth (diamond jubilee)
- organized labour — labour carried out by workers in trade unions, or the workers themselves
- outboard profile — an exterior side elevation of a vessel, showing all deck structures, rigging, fittings, etc.
- paratuberculosis — Johne's disease.
- photograph album — bound book for photos
- planetary nebula — an expanding shell of thin ionized gas that is ejected from and surrounds a hot, dying star of about the same mass as the sun; the gas absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the central star and reemits it as visible light by the process of fluorescence.
- public relations — (used with a plural verb) the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc.
- public transport — fare-paying travel
- publication date — the date on which a book or periodical is or is planned to be published.
- publicity agency — an advertising agency; a firm that gets publicity for people or products
- put in mothballs — to postpone work on (a project, activity, etc)
- query by example — (database, language) (QBE) A user-friendly query language developed by Moshé Zloof of IBM in 1975.
- questionableness — The state or condition of being questionable; dubiousness.
- razor-billed auk — a black and white auk, Alca torda, of the American and European coasts of the northern North Atlantic, having a compressed black bill encircled by a white band.
- reasonable doubt — law: grounds for believing sb is innocent
- redistributional — a distribution performed again or anew.
- republican party — one of the two major political parties in the U.S.: originated 1854–56.
- republican river — a river flowing E from E Colorado through Nebraska and Kansas into the Kansas River. 422 miles (680 km) long.
- rhythm and blues — a folk-based but urbanized form of black popular music that is marked by strong, repetitious rhythms and simple melodies and was developed, in a commercialized form, into rock-'n'-roll.
- rhythm-and-blues — a folk-based but urbanized form of black popular music that is marked by strong, repetitious rhythms and simple melodies and was developed, in a commercialized form, into rock-'n'-roll.
- ribonucleic acid — RNA.
- right honourable — (in Britain and certain Commonwealth countries) a title of respect for a Privy Councillor or an appeal-court judge
- rough and tumble — characterized by violent, random, disorderly action and struggles: a rough-and-tumble fight; He led an adventuresome, rough-and-tumble life.
- rough-and-tumble — characterized by violent, random, disorderly action and struggles: a rough-and-tumble fight; He led an adventuresome, rough-and-tumble life.
- round lake beach — a town in NE Illinois.
- run the blockade — to go past or through a blockade
- run-time library — (operating system, programming, library) A file containing routines which are linked with a program at run time rather than at compile-time. The advantage of such dynamic linking is that only one copy of the library needs to be stored, rather than a copy being included with each executable that refers to it. This can greatly reduce the disk space occupied by programs. Furthermore, it means that all programs immediately benefit from changes (e.g. bug fixes) to the single copy of the library without requiring recompilation. Since the library code is normally classified as read-only to the memory management system, it is possible for a single copy of the library to be loaded into memory and shared by all active programs, thus reducing RAM and virtual memory requirements and program load time.
- scarborough lily — a plant, Vallota speciosa, of the amaryllis family, native to southern Africa, having clusters of funnel-shaped, scarlet flowers.
- schaumburg-lippe — a former state in NW Germany.
- sebaceous glands — any of the cutaneous glands that secrete oily matter for lubricating hair and skin.
- security blanket — a blanket or other familiar item carried especially by a young child to provide reassurance and a feeling of psychological security.
- self-lubricating — to apply some oily or greasy substance to (a machine, parts of a mechanism, etc.) in order to diminish friction; oil or grease (something).
- self-lubrication — the process of becoming lubricated without external factors
- self-subjugation — the act, fact, or process of subjugating, or bringing under control; enslavement: The subjugation of the American Indians happened across the country.
- semantic tableau — a method of demonstrating the consistency or otherwise of a set of statements by constructing a diagrammatic representation of all the circumstances that satisfy the set of statements
- sodium bisulfate — a colorless crystalline compound, NaHSO 4 , soluble in water: used in dyeing, in the manufacture of cement, paper, soap, and an acid-type cleaner.
- sounding balloon — a balloon carrying instruments aloft to make atmospheric measurements, especially a radiosonde balloon.
- south sea bubble — the financial crash that occurred in 1720 after the South Sea Company had taken over the national debt in return for a monopoly of trade with the South Seas, causing feverish speculation in their stocks
- spanish bluebell — a bulbous plant, Endymion hispanicus, of the lily family, native to Spain and Portugal, having blue, white, or pink, bell-shaped flowers.
- stalked puffball — a puffball-like mushroom of the genus Tulestoma, maturing in early winter.
- subcartilaginous — partially or incompletely cartilaginous.
- subliminal image — an image used in advertising, etc, that is too quick to be registered by the mind but is used to influence the viewer unconsciously
- sublingual gland — (in human beings) either of a pair of salivary glands situated beneath the tongue
- substitutability — a person or thing acting or serving in place of another.
- subtropical high — one of several highs, as the Azores and Pacific highs, that prevail over the oceans at latitudes of about 30 degrees N and S. Also called subtropical anticyclone. Compare high (def 37).
- sulfocarbanilide — thiocarbanilide.
- superserviceable — overly disposed to be of service; officious.
- take the trouble — If you take the trouble to do something, you do something which requires a small amount of additional effort.
- tarantula nebula — a huge bright emission nebula located in the S hemisphere in the Large Magellanic Cloud
- teutoburger wald — a chain of wooded hills in Germany, in Westphalia: Romans defeated by German tribes a.d.