19-letter words containing a, b, n, f
- gentile da fabriano — 1370?–1427, Italian painter.
- harbinger-of-spring — a North American umbelliferous herb, Erigenia bulbosa, having white flowers that bloom early in the spring.
- heat of sublimation — the heat absorbed by one gram or unit mass of a substance in the process of changing, at a constant temperature and pressure, from a solid to a gaseous state. Compare sublime (def 10).
- hildegard of bingen — Hildegard von (Hildegard of Bingen"Sibyl of the Rhine") 1098–1178, German nun, healer, writer, and composer.
- information algebra — Theoretical formalism for DP, never resulted in a language. Language Structure Group of CODASYL, ca. 1962. Sammet 1969, 709.
- isthmus of san blas — the narrowest part of the Isthmus of Panama. Width: about 50 km (30 miles)
- judgment by default — a judgment in the plaintiff's favour when the defendant fails to plead or to appear
- library of congress — one of the major library collections in the world, located in Washington, D.C., and functioning in some ways as the national library of the U.S. although not officially designated as such: established by Congress in 1800 for service to its members, but now also serving government agencies, other libraries, and the public.
- line-of-battle ship — ship of the line.
- load-bearing printf — (programming, humour) The kind of bug present in a program which works correctly when producing debug output but fails when the debugging is turned off. The expression combines load-bearing wall and printf as used in debugging by printf.
- minimum iron fabric — cloth used to make clothes that require little ironing
- municipal bond fund — a mutual fund that invests in municipal bonds.
- negation by failure — An extralogical feature of Prolog and other logic programming languages in which failure of unification is treated as establishing the negation of a relation. For example, if Ronald Reagan is not in our database and we asked if he was an American, Prolog would answer "no".
- non-transferability — to convey or remove from one place, person, etc., to another: He transferred the package from one hand to the other.
- on someone's behalf — in / on behalf of, as a representative of or a proxy for: On behalf of my colleagues, I address you tonight.
- own flesh and blood — If you say that someone is your own flesh and blood, you are emphasizing that they are a member of your family.
- pancreatic fibrosis — cystic fibrosis.
- papal infallibility — the dogma that the pope cannot err in a solemn teaching addressed to the whole church on a matter of faith or morals.
- paschen-back effect — a splitting of spectral lines observed when the source of a radiation is subjected to a strong magnetic field, caused when the vectors associated with the spin and orbital angular momentum exhibit individual rather than common precession.
- put on the feed bag — Also called nose bag. a bag for feeding horses, placed before the mouth and fastened around the head with straps.
- republic of ireland — John, 1838–1918, U.S. Roman Catholic clergyman and social reformer, born in Ireland: archbishop of St. Paul, Minn., 1888–1918.
- republic of vietnam — the name (from 1955–75) for South Vietnam, as an independent republic, following the division of the country in 1954 into North Vietnam and South Vietnam
- shortness of breath — respiratory difficulty
- siberian forest cat — a breed of powerfully-built long-haired cat, typically tabby with a white ruff and white paws
- siberian wallflower — a North American plant, Erysimum asperum, of the mustard family, having orange-yellow flowers.
- son-of-a-bitch stew — (in the Old West) a stew often prepared by chuck-wagon cooks for working cowboys, containing tripe and often also the heart, liver, brains, kidney, etc., of a slaughtered steer.
- stanford-binet test — a revised version of the Binet-Simon scale, prepared at Stanford University for use in the U.S.
- subsistence farming — farming whose products are intended to provide for the basic needs of the farmer, with little surplus for marketing.
- switchblade (knife) — a large jackknife that snaps open when a release button on the handle is pressed
- throw oneself at sb — If someone throws themselves at you, they make it very obvious that they want to begin a relationship with you, by behaving as though they are sexually attracted to you.
- to be full of beans — If someone is full of beans, they are very lively and have a lot of energy and enthusiasm.
- transference number — that fraction of the total electric current that anions and cations carry in passing through an electrolytic solution.
- under the banner of — If someone does something under the banner of a particular cause, idea, or belief, they do it saying that they support that cause, idea, or belief.
- upper carboniferous — Pennsylvanian (defs 2, 4).
- won't have a bar of — cannot tolerate; dislike