13-letter words containing a, b, l
- bachelor seal — a young male seal, esp a fur seal, that has not yet mated
- bachelorettes — Plural form of bachelorette.
- bacillophobia — The fear of microbes. Also known as germaphobia.
- back and fill — to manoeuvre the sails by alternately filling and emptying them of wind to navigate in a narrow place
- back clipping — a word formed by omitting the last part of the form from which it is derived.
- back walkover — Racing. a walking or trotting over the course by a contestant who is the only starter.
- back-end load — the final charges of commission and expenses made by an investment trust, insurance policy, etc, when the investor is paid out
- back-slapping — Back-slapping is noisy, cheerful behaviour which people use in order to show affection or appreciation to each other.
- back-up light — a light on the rear of a motor vehicle to warn others that the vehicle is being reversed
- backdoor play — an offensive tactic whereby a player breaks away from a defender to receive a pass near the baseline in order to make a quick layup.
- backing light — Also called backing striplight, backing strip. Theater. a striplight providing diffused illumination for the background of a stage set.
- backpedalling — to retard the forward motion by pressing backward on the pedal, especially of a bicycle with coaster brakes.
- backward roll — a gymnastic roll that is performed with the feet going first and the rest of the body and the head following
- bacteriocidal — Alternative spelling of bactericidal.
- bacteriologic — a branch of microbiology dealing with the identification, study, and cultivation of bacteria and with their applications in medicine, agriculture, industry, and biotechnology.
- bacteriolysin — an antibody which, when it combines with bacterial cells, causes lysis of those cells, thus destroying them
- bacteriolysis — the destruction or disintegration of bacteria
- bacteriolytic — disintegration or dissolution of bacteria.
- baffin island — the largest island of the Canadian Arctic, between Greenland and Hudson Bay. Area: 476 560 sq km (184 000 sq miles)
- baggage claim — At an airport, the baggage claim is the area where you collect your baggage at the end of your trip.
- bahr el jebel — a river in S Sudan: a segment of the White Nile river. 594 miles (956 km) long.
- bail bondsman — an individual or firm that lends bail money to defendants awaiting trial
- bailey bridge — a temporary bridge made of prefabricated steel panels that can be rapidly assembled
- baily's beads — the brilliant points of sunlight that appear briefly around the moon, just before and after a total eclipse
- bakewell tart — an open tart having a pastry base and a layer of jam and filled with almond-flavoured sponge cake
- balance shaft — a shaft in a vehicle engine that is designed to reduce the amount of vibration from other moving parts as it rotates
- balance sheet — A balance sheet is a written statement of the amount of money and property that a company or person has, including amounts of money that are owed or are owing. Balance sheet is also used to refer to the general financial state of a company.
- balance staff — a pivoted axle or shaft on which the balance is mounted.
- balance wheel — a wheel oscillating against the hairspring of a timepiece, thereby regulating its beat
- balanced diet — a diet consisting of the proper quantities and proportions of foods needed to maintain health or growth.
- balanced fund — a mutual fund made up of both stocks and bonds
- balanced line — a transmission line in which the oppositely directed components are symmetrical with respect to each other and to the ground.
- balanced step — any of a series of staircase winders so planned that they are nearly as wide at the inside of the stair as the adjacent fliers.
- balanced tree — (algorithm) An optimisation of a tree which aims to keep equal numbers of items on each subtree of each node so as to minimise the maximum path from the root to any leaf node. As items are inserted and deleted, the tree is restructured to keep the nodes balanced and the search paths uniform. Such an algorithm is appropriate where the overheads of the reorganisation on update are outweighed by the benefits of faster search. A B-tree is a kind of balanced tree that can have more than two subtrees at each node (i.e. one that is not restricted to being a binary tree).
- balancing act — If you perform a balancing act, you try to deal successfully with two or more people, groups, or situations that are in opposition to each other.
- balch springs — a town in NE Texas.
- balkan states — the countries of the Balkan Peninsula: the former Yugoslavian Republics, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, and the European part of Turkey
- balkanization — If you disapprove of the division of a country into separate independent states, you can refer to the Balkanization of the country.
- ball and ring — a simplified bead-and-reel turning, used especially in English and American furniture of the 17th century.
- ball handling — the control of the ball, as in basketball or soccer, by skillful dribbling and accurate passing.
- ball the jack — a spherical or approximately spherical body or shape; sphere: He rolled the piece of paper into a ball.
- ballad stanza — a four-line stanza, often used in ballads, in which the second and fourth lines rhyme and have three stresses each and the first and third lines are unrhymed and have four stresses each
- ballet dancer — a man or woman who takes part in ballet dancing, usually professionally
- ballet lesson — a class in which ballet is taught
- ballet master — a man who teaches and rehearses the dancers in a ballet company
- ballet school — a school where professional ballet dancers are trained
- ballistically — of or relating to ballistics.
- ballistospore — a spore, esp a fungal spore, that is forcefully ejected from its source
- balloon chuck — a lathe chuck having the form of a hollow hemisphere, for enclosing and holding small parts, as balance staffs of watches, so that only their ends are exposed.
- balloon clock — a bracket clock of the late 18th century, having a round dial on a short case with concave sides resting on bracket feet.