20-letter words containing a, b, e
- frederick barbarossa — ("Frederick Barbarossa") 1123?–90, king of Germany 1152–90; king of Italy 1152–90: emperor of the Holy Roman Empire 1152–90.
- front-to-back engine — an engine in which the crankshaft is arranged front to back along the axis of the vehicle
- general public virus — (software, legal) A pejorative name for some versions of the GNU project copyleft or General Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or application programs incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same terms as GNU code. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft "infects" software generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code.
- give a wide berth to — to keep clear of; avoid
- go from bad to worse — worsen
- good loser/bad loser — If someone is a good loser, they accept that they have lost a game or contest without complaining. If someone is a bad loser, they hate losing and complain about it.
- gorno-altai republic — a constituent republic of S Russia: mountainous, rising over 4350 m (14 500 ft) in the Altai Mountains of the south. Capital: Gorno-Altaisk. Pop: 202 900 (2002). Area: 92 600 sq km (35 740 sq miles)
- greatest lower bound — a lower bound that is greater than or equal to all the lower bounds of a given set: 1 is the greatest lower bound of the set consisting of 1, 2, 3. Abbreviation: glb.
- grey-crowned babbler — an insect-eating Australian bird, Pomatostomus temporalis of the family Timaliidae
- grievous bodily harm — law: serious injury
- hildegard von bingen — Hildegard von (Hildegard of Bingen"Sibyl of the Rhine") 1098–1178, German nun, healer, writer, and composer.
- hindu-arabic numeral — Arabic numeral.
- hit the panic button — an alarm button for use in an emergency, as to summon help.
- how about something? — what is your wish, opinion, or information concerning something (or someone)?
- hudson's bay blanket — a woollen blanket with wide stripes
- hungarian bromegrass — a pasture grass, Bromus inermis, native to Europe, having smooth blades.
- hyperbolic cotangent — a hyperbolic function that is the ratio of cosh to sinh, being the reciprocal of tanh; coth
- in a class by itself — unique
- in bad circumstances — (of a person) in a bad financial situation
- in the public domain — able to be discussed and examined freely by the general public
- independent variable — Mathematics. a variable in a functional relation whose value determines the value or values of other variables, as x in the relation y = 3 x 2 . Compare dependent variable (def 1).
- indian cucumber root — a North American plant, Medeola virginiana, of the lily family, having whorled leaves, nodding, greenish-yellow flowers, and an edible root.
- information builders — Distributors of LEVEL5 OBJECT. Telephone +1 800 969 INFO.
- integration by parts — Mathematics. a method of evaluating an integral by use of the formula, ∫udv = uv − ∫vdu.
- intelligent database — (database) A database management system which performs data validation and processing traditionally done by application programs. Most DBMSs provide some data validation, e.g. rejecting invalid dates or alphabetic data entered into money fields, but often most processing is done by application programs. There is however no limit to the amount of processing that can be done by an intelligent database as long as the process is a standard function for that data. Examples of techniques used to implement intelligent databases are constraints, triggers and stored procedures. Moving processing to the database aids data integrity because it is guaranteed to be consistent across all uses of the data. Mainframe databases have increasingly become more intelligent and personal computer database systems are rapidly following.
- intervening variable — a hypothetical variable postulated to account for the way in which a set of independent variables control a set of dependent variables
- intestinal amebiasis — amebic dysentery.
- isosorbide dinitrate — a coronary vasodilator, C 6 H 8 N 2 O 8 , used in the prophylaxis and treatment of angina.
- job control language — a language used to construct statements that identify a particular job to be run and specify the job's requirements to the operating system under which it will run. Abbreviation: JCL.
- justifiable homicide — murder committed under extenuating circumstances
- keyboard video mouse — (hardware) (KVM) Used to describe a "KVM switch" that allows one keyboard, one video display and one mouse to be switched between two or more computers.
- laboratory equipment — apparatus for scientific research and experiments
- labour-saving device — a machine, gadget, etc, that reduces (human) effort, hard work or labour
- lampbrush chromosome — a chromosome with looped projections resembling a brush
- land-office business — a lively, booming, expanding, or very profitable business.
- law of large numbers — the theorem in probability theory that the number of successes increases as the number of experiments increases and approximates the probability times the number of experiments for a large number of experiments.
- legislative assembly — the legislature of France 1791–92.
- like a ton of bricks — (used esp of the manner of punishing or reprimanding someone) with great force; severely
- live and breathe sth — be passionately interested in sth
- longitude by account — the longitude of the position of a vessel as estimated by dead reckoning.
- look before you leap — be aware of the risks involved in sth
- love's labour's lost — a comedy (1594–95?) by Shakespeare.
- macias nguema biyogo — a former name of Bioko.
- magdeburg hemisphere — one of a pair of hemispherical cups from which air can be evacuated when they are placed together: used to demonstrate the force of air pressure.
- massachusetts ballot — a ballot on which the candidates, with their party designations, are listed alphabetically in columns under the office for which they were nominated.
- mean something to sb — If a name, word, or phrase means something to you, you have heard it before and you know what it refers to.
- megabytes per second — (unit) (MBps, MB/s) Millions of bytes per second. A unit of data rate. 1 MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes per second (not 1,048,576).
- member of parliament — A Member of Parliament is a person who has been elected by the people in a particular area to represent them in a country's parliament. The abbreviation MP is often used.
- membranous labyrinth — an intricate combination of paths or passages in which it is difficult to find one's way or to reach the exit. Synonyms: maze, network, web.
- meta-dichlorobenzene — a colorless liquid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , soluble in alcohol and ether: used as a fumigant and insecticide.