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18-letter words containing n, a, b, o, i

  • bipolar transistor — (electronics)   A transistor made from a sandwich of n- and p-type semiconductor material: either npn or pnp. The middle section is known as the "base" and the other two as the "collector" and "emitter". When used as an amplifying element, the base to emitter junction is in a "forward-biased" (conducting) condition, and the base to collector junction is "reverse-biased" or non-conducting. Small changes in the base to emitter current (the input signal) cause either holes (for pnp devices) or free electrons (for npn) to enter the base from the emitter. The attracting voltage of the collector causes the majority of these charges to cross into and be collected by the collector, resulting in amplification. Contrast field effect transistor.
  • black nickel oxide — a gray-black, water-insoluble powder, Ni 2 O 3 , which, at 600°C, decomposes to nickel oxide: used chiefly in storage batteries as an oxidizing agent.
  • blanche of castile — ?1188–1252, queen consort (1223–26) of Louis VIII of France, born in Spain. The mother of Louis IX, she acted as regent during his minority (1226–36) and his absence on a crusade (1248–52)
  • blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
  • blocking capacitor — a capacitor that blocks the passage of direct current but allows alternating current to pass
  • bloodbrain barrier — a layer of tightly packed cells that make up the walls of brain capillaries and prevent substances in the blood from diffusing freely into the brain: passage across the cell membranes is determined by solubility in the lipid bilayer or recognition by a transport molecule.
  • board of education — a group or agency with responsibility for education
  • board of elections — a bipartisan board appointed usually by local authorities and charged with control of elections and voting procedure.
  • board of examiners — a group of people who officially administer examinations
  • bomb disposal unit — a unit of the police or armed services specializing in bomb disposal
  • boole's inequality — the theorem that the probability of several events occurring is less than or equal to the sum of the probabilities of each event occurring.
  • bosnia-herzegovina — a country in SE Europe; a constituent republic of Yugoslavia until 1991; in a state of civil war (1992–95); Serbian and Croatian forces were also involved: mostly barren and mountainous, with forests in the east. Languages: Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian (formerly all regarded together as Serbo-Croat). Religion: Muslim, Serbian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic. Currency: marka (pegged to the euro). Capital: Sarajevo. Pop: 3 875 723 (2013 est). Area: 51 129 sq km (19 737 sq miles)
  • boundary condition — a stated restriction, usually in the form of an equation, that limits the possible solutions to a differential equation.
  • branch instruction — a machine-language or assembly-language instruction that causes the computer to branch to another instruction
  • branch to fishkill — (IBM: from the location of one of the corporation's facilities) Any unexpected jump in a program that produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See jump off into never-never land, hyperspace.
  • branching fraction — (in branching) the proportion of the disintegrating nuclei that follow a particular branch to the total number of disintegrating nuclides
  • brazilian rosewood — a Brazilian tree, Dalbergia nigra, of the legume family.
  • break your silence — If someone breaks their silence about something, they talk about something that they have not talked about before or for a long time.
  • british somaliland — a former British protectorate (1884–1960) in E Africa, on the Gulf of Aden: united with Italian Somaliland in 1960 to form Somalia (or the Somali Republic); in 1991 the self-styled republic of Somaliland, covering the same area as the former British Somaliland, declared itself independent and continues to function largely as a separate entity, though without international recognition
  • broadcasting house — any of a number of buildings in the UK from which the BBC broadcasts or has broadcast
  • broken twill weave — a twill weave in which the direction of the diagonal produced by the weft threads is reversed after no more than two passages of the weft.
  • bronchocandidiasis — See under candidiasis.
  • business education — education for general knowledge of business practices.
  • cabernet sauvignon — a black grape originally grown in the Bordeaux area of France, and now throughout the wine-producing world
  • cabinet government — parliamentary government.
  • california rosebay — a Pacific coast shrub or tree (Rhododendron californicum) of the heath family, with rosy or purplish flowers
  • cambrian mountains — a mountain range in Wales, extending from Carmarthenshire in the S to Denbighshire in the N. Highest peak: Aran Fawddwy, 891 m (2970 ft)
  • cape breton island — an island off SE Canada, in NE Nova Scotia, separated from the mainland by the Strait of Canso: its easternmost point is Cape Breton. Pop: 132 298 (2006). Area: 10 280 sq km (3970 sq miles)
  • carbonic anhydrase — an enzyme in blood cells that catalyses the decomposition of carbonic acid into carbon dioxide and water, facilitating the transport of carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs
  • carbonic-anhydride — carbon dioxide.
  • carboxyhaemoglobin — haemoglobin coordinated with carbon monoxide, formed as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. As carbon monoxide is bound in preference to oxygen, tissues are deprived of oxygen
  • cerebral dominance — the normal tendency for one half of the brain, usually the left cerebral hemisphere in right-handed people, to exercise more control over certain functions (e.g. handedness and language) than the other
  • chebyshev equation — Tchebycheff equation.
  • christian brothers — a religious congregation of laymen founded in France in 1684 for the education of the poor
  • clay-colored robin — any of several small Old World birds having a red or reddish breast, especially Erithacus rubecula, of Europe.
  • clobbering machine — pressure to conform with accepted standards
  • combination square — an adjustable device for carpenters, used as a try square, miter square, level, etc.
  • combined operation — a military operation carried out jointly by allied forces
  • combustion chamber — an enclosed space in which combustion takes place, such as the space above the piston in the cylinder head of an internal-combustion engine or the chambers in a gas turbine or rocket engine in which fuel and oxidant burn
  • combustion furnace — a furnace used in the laboratory to carry out elemental analysis of organic compounds
  • contact inhibition — the cessation of movement, growth, and division in cells that touch each other.
  • controllable-pitch — (of a marine or aircraft propeller) having blades whose pitch can be changed during navigation or flight; variable-pitch.
  • cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
  • de bruijn notation — (language)   A variation of lambda notation for specifying functions using numbers instead of names to refer to formal parameters. A reference to a formal parameter is a number which gives the number of lambdas (written as \ here) between the reference and the lambda which binds the parameter. E.g. the function \ f . \ x . f x would be written \ . \ . 1 0. The 0 refers to the innermost lambda, the 1 to the next etc. The chief advantage of this notation is that it avoids the possibility of name capture and removes the need for alpha conversion.
  • de-objectification — to present as an object, especially of sight, touch, or other physical sense; make objective; externalize.
  • debt consolidation — the process of taking out a new loan (often secured on one's property) in order to pay off a number of existing debts
  • decachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) The fully chlorinated polychlorinated biphenyl containing ten chlorine atoms.
  • diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
  • didaskaleinophobia — The fear of going to school.
  • disability pension — a pension paid to people who are unable to continue to work because of a disability
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