17-letter words containing n, a, b, r, e
- beat one's breast — to display guilt and remorse publicly or ostentatiously
- bed and breakfast — Bed and breakfast is a system of accommodation in a hotel or guest house, in which you pay for a room for the night and for breakfast the following morning. The abbreviation B&B is also used.
- bed-and-breakfast — an accommodation offered by an inn, hotel, or especially a private home, consisting of a room for the night and breakfast the next morning for one inclusive price.
- beer and skittles — enjoyment or pleasure
- bell-hanger's bit — a bit for drilling small holes through studs or the like.
- benjamin banneker — Benjamin, 1731–1806, U.S. mathematician, natural historian, and astronomer.
- benjamin franklin — Aretha [uh-ree-thuh] /əˈri θə/ (Show IPA), born 1942, U.S. singer.
- benoit mandelbrot — (person) /ben'wa man'dl-bro/ Benoit B. Mandelbrot. The IBM scientist who wrote several original books on fractals and gave his name to the set he was discovered, the Mandelbrot set and coined the term "fractal" in 1975 from the Latin fractus or "to break".
- beyond comparison — outstanding, without equal
- bill of adventure — a certificate made out by a merchant to show that goods handled by him and his agents are the property of another party at whose risk the dealing is done
- bill of attainder — (formerly) a legislative act finding a person guilty without trial of treason or felony and declaring him attainted
- 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.
- bitter almond oil — almond oil (def 2).
- bitter-almond-oil — Also called sweet almond oil, expressed almond oil. a colorless to pale yellow fatty oil expressed from the seeds of the sweet almond, used in preparing perfumes and confections.
- bjarne stroustrup — (person) The father of C++ and author of the C++ bible.
- black renaissance — a renewal and flourishing of black literary and musical culture during the years after World War I in the Harlem section of New York City.
- blackboard jungle — a school or school system characterized by lack of discipline and by juvenile delinquency.
- blank endorsement — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
- blessed sacrament — the consecrated elements of the Eucharist
- blood and thunder — A blood and thunder performer or performance is very loud and emotional.
- blood-and-thunder — sensationalism, violence, or exaggerated melodrama: a movie full of blood and thunder.
- bluegrass country — region in central Ky. where there is much bluegrass
- board of managers — a group of people responsible for managing an organization
- board-and-shingle — a small dwelling with wooden walls and a shingle roof
- boat-billed heron — a nocturnal, tropical American wading bird (Cochlearius cochlearius) with a large, broad bill: it is the only member of a family (Cochleariidae) of wading birds
- 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.
- bohemian brethren — a Protestant Christian sect formed in the 15th century from various Hussite groups, which rejected oaths and military service and advocated a pure and disciplined spiritual life. It was reorganized in 1722 as the Moravian Church
- bone marrow donor — a person who donates bone marrow
- 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.
- brain haemorrhage — bleeding into the brain
- branch delay slot — delayed control-transfer
- 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 emerald — a green variety of tourmaline used as a gem: not a true emerald.
- brazilian peridot — a light yellowish-green tourmaline used as a gem: not a true peridot.
- break one's heart — to grieve or cause to grieve very deeply, esp through love
- breakdown service — a service that provides assistance to motorists who break down
- breakdown voltage — the minimum applied voltage that would cause a given insulator or electrode to break down.
- breathe life into — revive, rejuvenate
- brigadier general — In the United States, a brigadier general is a senior officer in the armed forces who is often in charge of a brigade and has a rank above colonel and below major general.
- brightening agent — a compound applied to a textile to increase its brightness by the conversion of ultraviolet radiation to visible (blue) light, used in detergents
- brighton and hove — a city and unitary authority in S England, in East Sussex. Pop: 251 500 (2003 est). Area: 72 sq km (28 sq miles)
- bring up the rear — to be at the back in a procession, race, etc
- british cameroons — a former British trust territory of West Africa
- british-cameroons — German Kamerun. a region in W Africa: a German protectorate 1884–1919; divided in 1919 into British and French mandates.
- broad-winged hawk — an American hawk, Buteo platypterus, dark brown above and white barred with rufous below.
- brocot escapement — a type of anchor escapement.
- broderie anglaise — open embroidery on white cotton, fine linen, etc
- brokerage account — A brokerage account is an account with a broker where an investor can buy and sell and hold securities.
- bronze star medal — a U.S. military decoration awarded for heroic or meritorious achievement or service in combat not involving aerial flight