12-letter words containing n, a, g
- bead molding — bead (def 12).
- bear-baiting — (formerly) an entertainment in which dogs attacked and enraged a chained bear
- beardtongues — Plural form of beardtongue.
- bearing down — to hold up; support: to bear the weight of the roof.
- bearing pile — a foundation pile that supports weight vertically
- bearing rail — a transverse rail carrying a drawer or drawers.
- bearing rein — a rein from the bit to the saddle, designed to keep the horse's head in the desired position
- bearing wall — any of the walls supporting a floor or the roof of a building.
- bearskin rug — the pelt of a bear, used as a rug
- beaumontague — a cement-like substance used to fill in and hide cracks and holes in woodwork and metalwork
- belaying pin — a cylindrical, sometimes tapered pin, usually of metal or wood, that fits into a hole in a pin or fife rail: used for belaying
- beleaguering — to surround with military forces.
- belgian hare — a large red breed of domestic rabbit
- bell gardens — a town in SW California, near Los Angeles.
- belly-aching — Informal. a pain in the abdomen or bowels.
- benchmarking — In business, benchmarking is a process in which a company compares its products and methods with those of the most successful companies in its field, in order to try to improve its own performance.
- bengal light — a firework or flare that burns with a steady bright blue light, formerly used as a signal
- bengal tiger — a large tiger found in S. Asia
- benzal group — the bivalent group C 7 H 6 –, derived from benzaldehyde.
- beta testing — (programming) Evaluation of a pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software (or possibly hardware) by making it available to selected users ("beta testers") before it goes on general distribution. Beta testign aims to discover bugs that only occur in certain environments or under certain patterns of use, while reducing the volume of feedback to a manageable level. The testers benefit by having earlier access to new products, features and fixes. Beta testing may be preceded by "alpha testing", performed in-house by a handful of users (e.g. other developers or friends), who can be expected to give rapid, high quality feedback on design and usability. Once the product is considered to be usable for its intended purpose it then moves on to "beta testing" by a larger, but typically still limited, number of ordinary users, who may include external customers. Some companies such as Google or Degree Jungle stretch the definition, claiming their products are "in beta" for many months by millions of users. The term derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout the industry. "Alpha test" was the unit test, module test or component test phase; "Beta Test" was initial system test. These themselves came from earlier A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a feasibility and manufacturability evaluation done before any commitment to design and development. The B-test was a demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified. The C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed on early samples of the production design.
- bias binding — a strip of material cut on the bias for extra stretch and often doubled, used for binding hems, interfacings, etc, or for decoration
- bible banger — Bible-thumper.
- bible-banger — Bible-thumper.
- bilingualism — Bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages equally well.
- bilinguality — the ability to speak two languages fluently.
- billingsgate — the largest fish market in London, on the N bank of the River Thames; moved to new site at Canary Wharf in 1982 and the former building converted into offices
- binary digit — either of the two digits 0 or 1, used in binary notation
- binge eating — the practice of eating excessive amounts of food over a short period of time
- bingo caller — the person who shouts out the numbers to bingo players
- bio-organism — a dangerous fast-proliferating organism that could be used as the basis of a biological weapon
- bioinorganic — pertaining to the biological activity of metal complexes and nonmetal compounds based on elements other than carbon (contrasted with bioorganic).
- biomagnetics — the study of magnetic fields as a form of therapy
- biomagnetism — animal magnetism.
- biscay green — a yellowish green.
- biting mania — an epidemic in which people have a compulsion to bite others, as in 15th-century Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
- biting stage — the second part of the oral phase of psychosexual development, approximately 8 to18 months of age, during which a child has the urge to bite or chew objects.
- black knight — a person or firm that makes an unwelcome takeover bid for a company
- black tongue — canine pellagra.
- blackbirding — a common European thrush, Turdus merula, the male of which is black with a yellow bill.
- blaze orange — a very bright orange, as on a traffic cone.
- blazing star — a North American liliaceous plant, Chamaelirium luteum, with a long spike of small white flowers
- blind casing — (in a box window frame) a rough framework to which the trim is secured.
- blind flange — a disk for closing the end of a pipe, having holes for bolting it to a flange.
- block caving — a method of mining a large block of ore by systematically undercutting so the ore will cave. Compare cave (def 5a).
- block signal — a fixed railroad signal governing the movements of trains entering and using a given section of track.
- blood orange — a variety of orange all or part of the pulp of which is dark red when ripe
- bloomingdale — a town in NE Illinois.
- blotting-pad — an object to one side of which a piece of blotting paper is attached for blotting text handwritten in ink
- bluesnarfing — the practice of using one Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone to steal contact details, ring tones, images, etc from another
- boar-hunting — the practice of hunting wild boars