17-letter words containing a, p
- at one fell swoop — to sweep through the air, as a bird or a bat, especially down upon prey.
- at one's disposal — If you have something at your disposal, you are able to use it whenever you want, and for whatever purpose you want. If you say that you are at someone's disposal, you mean that you are willing to help them in any way you can.
- at one's own pace — If you do something at your own pace, you do it at a speed that is comfortable for you.
- at swords' points — ready to quarrel or fight
- at the expense of — If you achieve something at the expense of someone, you do it in a way which might cause them some harm or disadvantage.
- attraction sphere — centrosphere (sense 1)
- audio description — a facility provided for visually impaired people in which a film, television programme, or play is described through audio technology
- australian kelpie — one of an Australian breed of medium-sized sheepherding dogs having a short, harsh, straight coat in a combination of colors that can include black, red, tan, fawn, chocolate, or smoke blue, probably developed by crossbreeding between the border collie and dingo.
- australopithecine — any of various extinct apelike primates of the genus Australopithecus and related genera, remains of which have been discovered in southern and E Africa. Some species are estimated to be over 4.5 million years old
- avoirdupois pound — a pound weighing 16 ounces
- babi yar symphony — a symphony (1962) by Dimitri Dimitrievich Shostakovich.
- baby-doll pyjamas — frilly pyjamas with short pants and no sleeves
- background report — a report on someone or something that sheds light on their background, esp a report on the background of a person convicted of a crime before they are sentenced by a judge
- bacteriorhodopsin — a purple protein containing retinal and found in the plasma membrane of certain bacteria (genus Halobacterium): it directly supplies electrochemical energy from sunlight
- baltimore clipper — a small, fast American sailing vessel of the early 19th century, having a sharp hull form and two masts with a pronounced rake and carrying a brig or schooner rig.
- banana phenomenon — banana problem
- bangalore torpedo — an explosive device in a long metal tube, used to blow gaps in barbed-wire barriers
- banking principle — the principle that bank notes are a form of credit and should be issued freely in order to maintain an elastic currency.
- bankruptcy estate — all of the interests that a debtor has at the start of a bankruptcy case
- bari delle puglie — Italian name of Bari.
- barred woodpecker — a climbing bird, Picoides minor, of the family Picidae
- basic proposition — protocol (def 6).
- basketball player — someone who plays basketball
- beat to the punch — to be quicker than (another) in doing something, as in striking a blow
- beauty specialist — a person who helps someone to improve their beauty, such as a make-up artist
- behaviour therapy — any of various means of treating psychological disorders, such as desensitization, aversion therapy, and instrumental conditioning, that depend on the patient systematically learning new modes of behaviour
- bell-shaped curve — bell curve
- bent out of shape — very angry, upset, or agitated
- bermuda buttercup — a bulbous plant, Oxalis pescaprae, native to southern Africa, having nodding, yellow flowers.
- beyond comparison — outstanding, without equal
- binary opposition — a relation between the members of a pair of linguistic items, as a pair of distinctive features, such that one is the absence of the other, as voicelessness and voice, or that one is at the opposite pole from the other, as stridency and mellowness.
- biological parent — a parent who has conceived (biological mother) or sired (biological father) rather than adopted a child and whose genes are therefore transmitted to the child.
- biological weapon — a weapon which uses a biological agent to harm people and other living organisms
- biopharmaceutical — of or relating to drugs produced using biotechnology
- bitmapped display — bitmap display
- bjarne stroustrup — (person) The father of C++ and author of the C++ bible.
- blackpoll warbler — a North American warbler, Dendroica striata, the adult male of which has the top of the head black.
- blasphemous libel — In Britain, previously, the crime committed if a person insults, offends, or vilifies the deity, Christ, or the Christian religion
- blind carbon copy — a duplicate of anything written or typed, or a copy of an email or other electronic document, that is sent to someone whose name is not visible to the primary addressee. Abbreviation: bcc.
- blowpipe analysis — a type of chemical analysis in which the intensely hot flame of a blowpipe vaporizes a mineral or other substance with a characteristically colored flame and a unique odor, so as to identify chemical elements in a substance
- body center plate — one of a pair of plates that fit together and support the body of a car on a truck, while allowing the truck to rotate with respect to the body. One plate (body center plate) is attached to the underside of the car body and the other (truck center plate) is part of the car truck.
- boileau-despreaux — Nicolas [nee-kaw-lah] /ni kɔˈlɑ/ (Show IPA), 1636–1711, French critic and poet.
- book depreciation — Book depreciation is depreciation in a company's internal financial records that is different from the amount that is used for taxes.
- boolean operation — any operation in which each of the operands and the result take one of two values.
- boothia peninsula — a peninsula of N Canada: the northernmost part of the mainland of North America, lying west of the Gulf of Boothia, an arm of the Arctic Ocean
- boulder raspberry — a shrub, Rubus deliciosus, of Colorado, having large white flowers and purple fruit.
- bradford spinning — a wool-spinning method in which the fibers are oiled prior to combing and subsequently spun into worsted yarn.
- branch prediction — (processor, algorithm) A technique used in some processors with instruction prefetch to guess whether a conditional branch will be taken or not and prefetch code from the appropriate location. When a branch instruction is executed, its address and that of the next instruction executed (the chosen destination of the branch) are stored in the Branch Target Buffer. This information is used to predict which way the instruction will branch the next time it is executed so that instruction prefetch can continue. When the prediction is correct (and it is over 90% of the time), executing a branch does not cause a pipeline break. Some later CPUs simply prefetch both paths instead of trying to predict which way the branch will go. An extension of the idea of branch prediction is speculative execution.
- brazilian peridot — a light yellowish-green tourmaline used as a gem: not a true peridot.
- breach of promise — (formerly) failure to carry out one's promise to marry