13-letter words containing a, b, d
- barnyard golf — Informal: Facetious. the game of horseshoes.
- barred spiral — a spiral galaxy in which the arms originate at the ends of a bar-shaped nucleus
- barrel-shaped — having the shape of a barrel
- basel accords — the three sets of rules, Basel I, Basel II, and Basel III, for regulating the banking industry, drawn up by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision
- basidiomycete — any fungus of the phylum Basidiomycota (formerly class Basidiomycetes), in which the spores are produced in basidia. The group includes boletes, puffballs, smuts, and rusts
- basidiospores — Plural form of basidiospore.
- basket dinner — a group social gathering, as of church members, to which participants contribute casseroles or other dishes to share.
- bastard amber — a color of gelatin commonly used in stage lighting, similar to light amber but having a pinkish cast.
- bastard eigne — the first-born illegitimate son of parents whose second son was legitimate.
- bastard title — half title (def 1).
- bastard-title — Also called bastard title. the first printed page of certain books, appearing after the end papers and before the title page and containing only the title of the book.
- bat-eared fox — a fox, Vulpes chama, inhabiting dry areas of southern Africa and having large pointed ears, silvery gray coat, and a bushy tail with a black tip.
- 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)
- battered wife — See under battered woman syndrome.
- batting order — the sequence in which hitters will bat in a given game, determined in advance by the team manager.
- battlegrounds — Plural form of battleground.
- bay for blood — If you say that people are baying for blood, you mean that they are demanding that someone should be hurt or punished.
- bay of gdańsk — a wide inlet of the Baltic Sea on the N coast of Poland
- be hard going — If you say that something is hard going, you mean it is difficult and requires a lot of effort.
- 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
- be wild about — If you are wild about someone or something, you like them very much.
- beached whale — large sea mammal stranded on shore
- 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.
- beaded lizard — a large, stout-bodied, venomous lizard, Heloderma horridum, inhabiting western Mexico, having black, beadlike scales with yellow to pinkish spots and splotches.
- beaked salmon — sandfish (def 2).
- beaked-salmon — sandfish (def 2).
- bearing sword — a large sword carried for its owner by a squire or servant because of its size.
- beat the band — a company of persons or, sometimes, animals or things, joined, acting, or functioning together; aggregation; party; troop: a band of protesters.
- beat the drum — a musical percussion instrument consisting of a hollow, usually cylindrical, body covered at one or both ends with a tightly stretched membrane, or head, which is struck with the hand, a stick, or a pair of sticks, and typically produces a booming, tapping, or hollow sound.
- beauty editor — the person in charge of a section of newspaper or magazine devoted to cosmetics, etc
- bed and board — sleeping accommodation and meals
- bedaux system — a system of payment for work on the basis of the number of points of work done in a given amount of time, each point representing one minute of work on a given job at a normal rate of speed.
- 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).
- bedroom farce — a light comedy about sexual relationships
- bedside table — a small table beside a bed
- beetle-headed — a stupid person; blockhead.
- beetlebrained — stupid
- belly landing — the landing of an aircraft on its fuselage without use of its landing gear
- benedictional — a book of benedictions or blessings
- benefit fraud — the illegal activity of claiming benefit payments which a person is not entitled to
- benzimidazole — a crystalline growth-inhibiting compound
- berchtesgaden — a town in Germany, in SE Bavaria: site of the fortified mountain retreat of Adolf Hitler. Pop: 7667 (2003 est)
- bermuda grass — a widely distributed grass, Cynodon dactylon, with wiry creeping rootstocks and several purplish spikes of flowers arising from a single point: used for lawns, pasturage, binding sand dunes, etc
- bermuda onion — a large white or yellow onion with a mild flavor, grown in Texas, California, etc.
- beyond a joke — If you say that an annoying or worrying situation is beyond a joke, you are emphasizing that it is worse than you think is fair or reasonable.
- beyond recall — If something is beyond recall, it is no longer possible to remember how it was or to bring it back to its original condition.
- bhagavad gita — a portion of the Mahabharata, having the form of a dialogue between the hero Arjuna and his charioteer, the avatar Krishna, in which a doctrine combining Brahmanical and other elements is evolved.
- bhagavad-gita — a sacred Hindu text composed about 200 bc and incorporated into the Mahabharata, a Sanskrit epic