13-letter words containing a, b, c
- bladder wrack — any of various brown algae (genera Ascophyllum and Fucus), having a flattened body and conspicuous air bladders
- blaise pascal — Blaise [bleyz;; French blez] /bleɪz;; French blɛz/ (Show IPA), 1623–62, French philosopher and mathematician.
- blame culture — the tendency to look for one person or organization that can be held responsible for a bad state of affairs, an accident, etc
- blanchisseuse — a washer-woman
- blanket chest — a chest, with or without drawers, having a rectangular space under a lifting lid or top, used for storing blankets, bedding, or clothing.
- blasco ibanez — Vicente (biˈθente). 1867–1928, Spanish novelist, whose books include Blood and Sand (1909) and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1916)
- blast furnace — A blast furnace is a large structure in which iron ore is heated under pressure so that it melts and the pure iron metal separates out and can be collected.
- blastomycosis — a fungal infection particularly affecting the lungs
- 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 release — the release of industrial trainees from work for study at a college for several weeks
- blood alcohol — alcohol that is circulating in the blood
- bloody caesar — a drink consisting of vodka, juice made from clams and tomatoes, and usually Worcester sauce and hot pepper sauce
- 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.
- boarding card — A boarding card is a card which a passenger must have when boarding a plane or a boat.
- boat neckline — a wide, high neckline that follows the curve of the collarbone and ends in points on the shoulder seams.
- body snatcher — (formerly) a person who robbed graves and sold the corpses for dissection
- bois de vache — dried buffalo dung, used as fuel by Canadian and U.S. fur trappers in the 18th and 19th centuries.
- bombastically — (of speech, writing, etc.) high-sounding; high-flown; inflated; pretentious.
- bomber jacket — A bomber jacket is a short jacket which is gathered into a band at the waist or hips.
- bona vacantia — unclaimed goods
- bonanza creek — a stream in W Yukon Territory, Canada, flowing NW to the Klondike River near Dawson: gold strike 1896. 20 miles (32 km) long.
- boniface viii — original name Benedict Caetano. ?1234–1303, pope (1294–1303)
- boolean logic — (logic) A logic based on Boolean algebra.
- booster cable — either of a pair of electric cables having clamps at each end and used for starting the engine of a vehicle whose battery is dead.
- bootlace worm — a nemertean worm, Lineus longissimus, that inhabits shingly shores and attains lengths of over 6 m (20 ft)
- boraginaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Boraginaceae, a family of temperate and tropical typically hairy-leaved flowering plants that includes forget-me-not, lungwort, borage, comfrey, and heliotrope
- boron carbide — a black extremely hard inert substance having a high capture cross section for thermal neutrons. It is used as an abrasive, refractory, and in control rods in nuclear reactors. Formula: B4C
- bounce around — to spring back from a surface in a lively manner: The ball bounced off the wall.
- bounced flash — a flash bounced off a reflective surface, as a ceiling or wall, to illuminate a subject indirectly.
- bouncy castle — A bouncy castle is a large object filled with air, often in the shape of a castle, which children play on at a fairground or other outdoor event.
- boundary scan — The use of scan registers to capture state from device input and output pins. IEEE Standard 1149.1-1990 describes the international standard implementation (sometimes called JTAG after the Joint Test Action Group which began the standardisation work).
- bowling match — a game of bowls
- boycott apple — (legal) Some time before 1989, Apple Computer, Inc. started a lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, claiming they had breeched Apple's copyright on the look and feel of the Macintosh user interface. In December 1989, Xerox failed to sue Apple Computer, claiming that the software for Apple's Lisa computer and Macintosh Finder, both copyrighted in 1987, were derived from two Xerox programs: Smalltalk, developed in the mid-1970s and Star, copyrighted in 1981. Apple wanted to stop people from writing any program that worked even vaguely like a Macintosh. If such look and feel lawsuits succeed they could put an end to free software that could substitute for commercial software. In the weeks after the suit was filed, Usenet reverberated with condemnation for Apple. GNU supporters Richard Stallman, John Gilmore and Paul Rubin decided to take action against Apple. Apple's reputation as a force for progress came from having made better computers; but The League for Programming Freedom believed that Apple wanted to make all non-Apple computers worse. They therefore campaigned to discourage people from using Apple products or working for Apple or any other company threatening similar obstructionist tactics (e.g. Lotus and Xerox). Because of this boycott the Free Software Foundation for a long time didn't support Macintosh Unix in their software. In 1995, the LPF and the FSF decided to end the boycott.
- boynton beach — a city in SE Florida.
- brace and bit — a hand tool for boring holes, consisting of a cranked handle into which a drilling bit is inserted
- brace molding — keel1 (def 6).
- brachiosaurus — a dinosaur of the genus Brachiosaurus, up to 30 metres long: the largest land animal ever known
- brachycranial — brachycephalic
- brachydactyly — abnormal shortness of the fingers and toes.
- brachypterous — having very short or incompletely developed wings
- brachytherapy — a form of radiotherapy in which sealed sources of radioactive material are inserted temporarily into body cavities or directly into tumours
- bracket clock — a small clock designed to be placed on a bracket or shelf.
- bracket creep — an advance into a higher income tax bracket resulting from an increase in nominal income: the higher taxes, when combined with the effects of inflation, may produce a decline in real income
- braggadocious — boastful
- brain scanner — a machine used to perform brain scans
- brain-picking — the act of obtaining information or ideas by questioning another person.
- branch office — the local branch of a bank, shop, or other business
- branch rickey — (Wesley) Branch, 1881–1965, U.S. baseball executive.
- brassicaceous — belonging to the plant family Brassicaceae, an alternative name for the plant family Cruciferae.