13-letter words containing an
- balanced step — any of a series of staircase winders so planned that they are nearly as wide at the inside of the stair as the adjacent fliers.
- balanced tree — (algorithm) An optimisation of a tree which aims to keep equal numbers of items on each subtree of each node so as to minimise the maximum path from the root to any leaf node. As items are inserted and deleted, the tree is restructured to keep the nodes balanced and the search paths uniform. Such an algorithm is appropriate where the overheads of the reorganisation on update are outweighed by the benefits of faster search. A B-tree is a kind of balanced tree that can have more than two subtrees at each node (i.e. one that is not restricted to being a binary tree).
- balancing act — If you perform a balancing act, you try to deal successfully with two or more people, groups, or situations that are in opposition to each other.
- balkan states — the countries of the Balkan Peninsula: the former Yugoslavian Republics, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, and the European part of Turkey
- balkanization — If you disapprove of the division of a country into separate independent states, you can refer to the Balkanization of the country.
- ball and ring — a simplified bead-and-reel turning, used especially in English and American furniture of the 17th century.
- ball handling — the control of the ball, as in basketball or soccer, by skillful dribbling and accurate passing.
- ballad stanza — a four-line stanza, often used in ballads, in which the second and fourth lines rhyme and have three stresses each and the first and third lines are unrhymed and have four stresses each
- ballet dancer — a man or woman who takes part in ballet dancing, usually professionally
- banana bender — a native or inhabitant of Queensland
- banana family — the plant family Musaceae, characterized by large treelike herbaceous plants of tropical regions, having a trunk formed by spiraling leaf sheaths, and bearing large leaves, flower clusters above leathery red-to-purple bracts, and fleshy fruit in clusters, including the banana and plantain.
- banana spider — a large, yellowish, tropical crab spider (Heteropoda venatoria) occasionally found in bunches of bananas shipped to the Temperate Zones
- banbury tarts — small baked pastries filled with raisins, currants, etc.
- bancassurance — the selling of insurance products by a bank to its customers
- band spectrum — a spectrum consisting of a number of bands of closely spaced lines that are associated with emission or absorption of radiation by molecules
- band together — If people band together, they meet and act as a group in order to try and achieve something.
- band-aid baby — a child conceived to strengthen a faltering relationship
- banded purple — any color having components of both red and blue, such as lavender, especially one deep in tone.
- banderilleros — Plural form of banderillero.
- bandicoot rat — any of three burrowing rats of the genera Bandicota and Nesokia, of S and SE Asia: family Muridae
- bandspreading — an additional tuning control in some radio receivers whereby a selected narrow band of frequencies can be spread over a wider frequency band, in order to give finer control of tuning
- bang goes sth — If you say bang goes something, you mean that it is now obvious that it cannot succeed or be achieved.
- bang on about — If someone bangs on about something, they keep talking about it in a boring or annoying way.
- banister back — a back of a chair or the like, usually having semicircular spindles between the top rail and the cross rail or seat.
- bank discount — interest on a loan deducted from the principal amount when the loan is made and based on the loan's face value
- bank examiner — a public official appointed under U.S. state or federal laws to inspect and audit the operations and accounts of banks in the examiner's jurisdiction.
- bank of issue — a bank, as a Federal Reserve Bank, empowered by a government to issue currency.
- bank transfer — a payment between two bank accounts
- banker's bill — a banknote
- banking hours — the hours during which a bank is open for business
- banking house — a more formal term for a bank
- bankrupt worm — a roundworm (genus Trichostrongylus) that is an intestinal parasite of birds and mammals, especially devastating to young livestock.
- bantamweights — Plural form of bantamweight.
- banzai attack — a mass attack of troops, without concern for casualties, as practised by the Japanese in World War II
- bar-and-grill — a place where food and alcoholic drinks are served to customers; a combined barroom and grillroom.
- baroque organ — a pipe organ dating from or built to the specifications of the baroque period at the time of J. S. Bach.
- basal ganglia — the thalamus together with other closely related masses of grey matter, situated near the base of the brain
- base exchange — a nonprofit general store at a military base, for the sale of merchandise for personal use, refreshments, etc.
- basic fortran — (language) A subset of Fortran.
- batan islands — a group of islands in the Philippines, north of Luzon. Capital: Basco. Pop: 16 467 (2000). Area: 197 sq km (76 sq miles)
- bay of gdańsk — a wide inlet of the Baltic Sea on the N coast of Poland
- be upstanding — (in a court of law) a direction to all persons present to rise to their feet before the judge enters or leaves the court
- bead and reel — a convex molding having the form of elongated beads alternating with disks placed edge-on, or with spherical beads, or with both.
- beanbag chair — a chair like a large beanbag covered with vinyl, fabric, etc. and filled with foam pellets, as of polystyrene, that shift about to fit one's body
- beat the band — a company of persons or, sometimes, animals or things, joined, acting, or functioning together; aggregation; party; troop: a band of protesters.
- bed and board — sleeping accommodation and meals
- bedding plane — the surface separating two successive layers of stratified rock
- bedding plant — A bedding plant is a plant which lasts for one year. It is put in a flower bed before it flowers, and is then removed when it has finished flowering.
- bedding-plant — bedmaker (def 1).
- belgian congo — former Belgian colony (1908-60) in central Africa: now the country of Democratic Republic of the Congo