13-letter words starting with bl
- blaze a trail — to explore new territories, areas of knowledge, etc, in such a way that others can follow
- bledisloe cup — a trophy competed for, usually annually, by New Zealand and Australia since 1932
- bleeding edge — If you are at the bleeding edge of a particular field of activity, you are involved in its most advanced or most exciting developments.
- blepharoplast — a cylindrical cytoplasmic body in protozoa
- blepharospasm — spasm of the muscle of the eyelids, causing the eyes to shut tightly, either as a response to painful stimuli or occurring as a form of dystonia
- blessed event — the birth of a child; also, a newborn child
- blind freddie — an imaginary person representing the highest degree of incompetence (esp in the phrase Blind Freddie could see that!)
- blinkenlights — /blink'*n-li:tz/ Front-panel diagnostic lights on a computer, especially a dinosaur. Derives from the last word of the famous blackletter-Gothic sign in mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the computer rooms in the English-speaking world. One version ran in its entirety as follows: In an amusing example of turnabout-is-fair-play, German hackers have developed their own versions of the blinkenlights poster in fractured English, one of which is reproduced here: ATTENTION This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment. Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is allowed for die experts only! So all the "lefthanders" stay away and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working intelligencies. Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked anderswhere! Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished the blinkenlights. See also geef.
- blister steel — steel produced from wrought iron by cementation in covered pots, having a blistered appearance because of the gases generated during the process.
- block booking — the making of bookings for a number of people, or e.g. purchasing a number of seats in a theatre, concert hall, etc at the same time
- block capital — a sans-serif letter with lines of uniform weight.
- block diagram — a diagram showing the interconnections between the parts of an industrial process
- block letters — Block letters are the same as block capitals.
- block release — the release of industrial trainees from work for study at a college for several weeks
- blonde moment — a brief mental lapse, as of judgment or memory: I must be having a blonde moment.
- blood alcohol — alcohol that is circulating in the blood
- blood blister — a blister filled with blood
- blood brother — A man's blood brother is a man he has sworn to treat as a brother, often in a ceremony which involves mixing a small amount of their blood.
- blood diamond — a diamond sold to help finance a military campaign
- blood glucose — Blood glucose is glucose (= a type of sugar) in the bloodstream.
- blood product — a pharmaceutical product made from blood, such as Factor VIII
- blood profile — a diagnostic test that determines the exact numbers of each type of blood cell in a fixed quantity of blood. Abbreviation: CBC.
- blood pudding — Blood pudding is another word for black pudding.
- blood sausage — a kind of black sausage made from minced pork fat, pig's blood, and other ingredients
- blood vessels — any of the vessels, as arteries, veins, or capillaries, through which the blood circulates.
- blood-letting — Blood-letting is violence or killing between groups of people, especially between rival armies.
- blood-profile — a diagnostic test that determines the exact numbers of each type of blood cell in a fixed quantity of blood. Abbreviation: CBC.
- blood-stained — stained with blood: a bloodstained knife.
- bloodcurdling — terrifying; horrifying
- bloody caesar — a drink consisting of vodka, juice made from clams and tomatoes, and usually Worcester sauce and hot pepper sauce
- bloody sunday — (in Northern Ireland) 30th January 1972, when British soldiers shot dead thirteen marchers in Londonderry who were protesting against the UK government's policy of internment
- bloody-minded — If you say that someone is being bloody-minded, you are showing that you disapprove of their behaviour because you think they are being deliberately difficult instead of being helpful.
- bloomfieldian — Linguistics. influenced by, resembling, or deriving from the linguistic theory and the methods of linguistic analysis advocated by Leonard Bloomfield, characterized especially by emphasis on the classification of overt formal features.
- blooming mill — a rolling mill for shaping ingots into blooms
- blot analysis — a technique for analysing biological molecules, such as proteins (Western blot analysis), DNA (Southern blot analysis), and RNA (Northern blot analysis), involving their separation by gel electrophoresis, transfer to a nitrocellulose sheet, and subsequent analysis by autoradiography
- blow a gasket — to burst out in anger
- blow an eprom — /bloh *n ee'prom/ (Or "blast", "burn") To program a read-only memory, e.g. for use with an embedded system. This term arose because the programming process for the Programmable Read-Only Memory (PROM) that preceded present-day Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM) involved intentionally blowing tiny electrical fuses on the chip. The usage lives on (it's too vivid and expressive to discard) even though the write process on EPROMs is nondestructive.
- blow moulding — a process for moulding single-piece plastic objects in which a thermoplastic is extruded into a split mould and blown against its sides
- blow sky-high — to destroy completely
- blow the gaff — to divulge a secret
- blue asbestos — a common name for the mineral crocidolite, a variety of asbestos found in Africa and Australia
- blue copperas — a salt, copper sulfate, CuSO 4 ⋅5H 2 O, occurring naturally as large transparent, deep-blue triclinic crystals, appearing in its anhydrous state as a white powder: used chiefly as a mordant, insecticide, fungicide, and in engraving.
- blue grosbeak — a grosbeak, Guiraca caerulea, of the U.S., Mexico, and Central America, the male of which is blue with two rusty bars on each wing.
- blue rockfish — a bluish-black rockfish, Sebastodes mystinus, inhabiting Pacific coastal waters of North America.
- blue verditer — either of two pigments, consisting usually of carbonate of copper prepared by grinding either azurite (blue verditer) or malachite (green verditer)
- blue whistler — blue norther.
- blue-eyed boy — Someone's blue-eyed boy is a young man who they like better than anyone else and who therefore receives better treatment than other people.