15-letter words containing a, b, i, r
- blasting powder — a form of gunpowder made with sodium nitrate instead of saltpeter, used chiefly for blasting rock, ore, etc.
- blenheim orange — a type of apple tree bearing gold-coloured apples
- boa constrictor — A boa constrictor is a large snake that kills animals by wrapping itself round their bodies and squeezing them to death. Boa constrictors are found mainly in South and Central America and the West Indies.
- board-certified — A doctor who is board-certified has passed tests and meets the standards of a board of specialists in their area of medicine.
- boarding school — A boarding school is a school which some or all of the pupils live in during the school term. Compare day school.
- body toning bar — a weighted exercise bar made of steel encased in a layer of foam, used for toning and strength training.
- bohemia-moravia — a former German protectorate including Bohemia and Moravia, 1939–45.
- bohemian forest — a mountain range between the SW Czech Republic and SE Germany. Highest peak: Arber, 1457 m (4780 ft)
- bookmaking firm — an organization that accepts bets from gamblers and pays out winnings
- borderline case — a person or thing that is not clearly classifiable as something
- boston marriage — (especially in 19th-century New England) an intimate friendship between two women often maintaining a household together.
- brachial plexus — a network of nerves in the armpits and neck, innervating the shoulders, arms, and hands.
- brachiocephalic — of, relating to, or supplying the arm and head
- brachistochrone — the curve between two points through which a body moves under the force of gravity in a shorter time than for any other curve; the path of quickest descent
- brackett series — a series of lines in the infrared spectrum of hydrogen.
- bragging rights — notional privileges that are gained by defeating a close rival
- braille display — (hardware) (Or "refreshable braille display", "refreshable display") An electromechanical device that renders braille with tiny, independently controlled pins used to represent the state of dots in braille cells. Each pin, in its "on" state, raises above the top of its hole in the screen; in its "off" state, it drops below the top of its hole. Older systems used tiny solenoids to control the state of the pins; modern systems are piezoelectric. Typical dimensions of a braille display are 1 line of 40 cells, each cell of two-by-eight dots.
- braille printer — (printer) (Or "(Braille) embosser") A printer, necessarily an impact printer, that renders text as Braille. Blind users call other printers ink printers.
- branchial cleft — Zoology. one of a series of slitlike openings in the walls of the pharynx between the branchial arches of fishes and aquatic amphibians through which water passes from the pharynx to the exterior.
- branchial pouch — one of a series of rudimentary outcroppings of the inner pharyngeal wall, corresponding to the branchial grooves on the surface.
- branching rules — rules that are used to break down a complex problem into several smaller problems
- branchiostegous — branchiostegal.
- brand extension — the practice of using a well-known brand name to promote new products or services in unrelated fields
- bravais lattice — any of 14 possible space lattices found in crystals
- brazilian guava — a Brazilian shrub, Psidium guineense, of the myrtle family, having white-fleshed, greenish-yellow, bitter fruit.
- brazilian plume — a tropical American plant, Justicia carnea, of the acanthus family, having hairy, prominently veined leaves and a short, dense cluster of purple or pink flowers, grown in greenhouses or outdoors in warm regions.
- breach of faith — a violation of good faith, confidence, or trust; betrayal: To abandon your friends now would be a breach of faith.
- break-in period — a period during which certain restrictions or moderation in operating should be followed, as the avoidance of high speed, rapid acceleration, or severe braking for a new automobile.
- breakeven point — a point at which the total revenue and total cost are equal
- breaking plough — a plough with a long shallow mouldboard for turning virgin land or sod land
- breaking strain — the amount of strain that, if applied to a particular material, will cause it to break
- breathing space — A breathing space is a short period of time between two activities in which you can recover from the first activity and prepare for the second one.
- breeding season — the time of year during which animals breed
- brights-disease — a disease characterized by albuminuria and heightened blood pressure.
- brill's disease — a form of epidemic typhus fever in which the disease recurs years after the original infection
- brillat-savarin — Anthelme (ɑ̃tɛlm). 1755–1826, French lawyer and gourmet; author of Physiologie du Goût (1825)
- bring to a head — to bring or be brought to a crisis
- bristol channel — an inlet of the Atlantic, between S Wales and SW England, merging into the Severn estuary. Length: about 137 km (85 miles)
- bristol fashion — clean and neat, with newly painted and scrubbed surfaces, brass polished, etc
- britannia metal — an alloy of low melting point consisting of tin with 5–10 per cent antimony, 1–3 per cent copper, and sometimes small quantities of zinc, lead, or bismuth: used for decorative purposes and for bearings
- british america — British North America.
- british library — the British national library, formed in 1973 from the British Museum library and other national collections: housed mainly in the British Museum until 1997 when a purpose-built library in St Pancras, London, was completed
- britneyfication — the effect on clothes and fashions of following the revealing styles favoured by the US pop singer Britney Spears (born 1981)
- broca's aphasia — a type of aphasia caused by a lesion in Broca's area of the brain, characterized by misarticulated speech and lack of grammatical morphemes.
- brompheniramine — a substance, C 16 H 19 BrN 2 , used as an antihistamine in the management of various allergies, as hay fever.
- bronchial tubes — the bronchi or their smaller divisions
- bronze diabetes — hemochromatosis.
- brother-in-arms — a fellow soldier or comrade in a shared struggle
- brown-tail moth — a white moth, Nygmia phaerrhoea, having a brown tuft at the end of the abdomen, the larvae of which feed on the foliage of various shade and fruit trees.
- brownian motion — the irregular motion of small particles suspended in a liquid or a gas, caused by the bombardment of the particles by molecules of the medium: first observed by Robert Brown in 1827.