20-letter words containing a, b, n, o
- clean bill of health — a good report of one's physical condition
- clean-bill-of-health — a certificate, carried by a ship, attesting to the presence or absence of infectious diseases among the ship's crew and at the port from which it has come.
- combination sandwich — a big sandwich with a mixed filling
- come back to someone — (of something forgotten) to return to someone's memory
- compensating balance — Also, compensated balance, compensation balance. a balance wheel in a timepiece, designed to compensate for variations in tension in the hair spring caused by changes in temperature.
- conservative baptist — a member of a Protestant denomination (Conservative Baptist Association of America) organized in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1948.
- constant de rebecque — Henri Benjamin [ahn-ree ban-zha-man] /ɑ̃ˈri bɛ̃ ʒaˈmɛ̃/ (Show IPA), (Benjamin Constant) 1767–1830, French statesman and author, born in Switzerland.
- constituent assembly — A constituent assembly is a body of representatives that is elected to create or change their country's constitution.
- contingent liability — a possible liability that is dependent on the outcome of a future event
- controlled substance — a drug regulated by the Federal Controlled Substances Acts, including opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens
- cytosine arabinoside — cytarabine.
- database transaction — (database) A set of related changes applied to a database. The term typically implies that either all of the changes should be applied or, in the event of an error, none of them, i.e. the transaction should be atomic. Atomicity is one of the ACID properties a transaction can have, another is isolation - preventing interference between processes trying to access the database cocurrently. This is usually achieved by some form of locking - where one process takes exclusive control of a database table or row for the duration of the transaction, preventing other processes from accessing the locked data. The canonical example of a transaction is transferring money between two bank accounts by subtracting it from one and adding it to the other. Some relational database management systems require the user to explicitly start a transaction and then either commit it (if all the individual steps are successful) or roll it back (if there are any errors).
- diabetic retinopathy — a disorder of the blood vessels of the retina occurring as a complication of poorly controlled diabetes mellitus and often leading to blindness.
- diamondback terrapin — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
- disability allowance — an amount of money paid by the government to people who are unable to work because of a disability. This is a general term or, in the UK, a shorter way of referring to what is officially called the Disability Living Allowance
- distribution channel — trade: retailer
- double fertilization — the fertilization process characteristic of flowering plants, in which one sperm cell of a pollen grain fertilizes an egg cell while a second fuses with two polar nuclei to produce a triploid body that gives rise to the endosperm.
- drum and bugle corps — a marching band of drum players and buglers.
- duck-billed dinosaur — hadrosaur.
- eat out of sb's hand — If you have someone eating out of your hand, they are completely under your control.
- electoral boundaries — the way that a country or area is divided for the purposes of voting in an election
- elizabeth of hungary — Saint. 1207–31, Hungarian princess who devoted herself to charity and asceticism. Feast day: Nov 17 and 19
- embryo vitrification — a method of in vitro fertilization in which the embryo is exposed to a vitreous solution and frozen before being thawed and implanted into the uterus
- enabling legislation — legislation conferring certain specified powers on a person or organization
- endorsement in blank — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
- environment variable — (programming, operating system) A variable that is bound in the current environment. When evaluating an expression in some environment, the evaluation of a variable consists of looking up its name in the environment and substituting its value. Most programming languages have some concept of an environment but in Unix shell scripts it has a specific meaning slightly different from other contexts. In shell scripts, environment variables are one kind of shell variable. They differ from local variables and command line arguments in that they are inheritted by a child process. Examples are the PATH variable that tells the shell the file system paths to search to find command executables and the TZ variable which contains the local time zone. The variable called "SHELL" specifies the type of shell being used. These variables are used by commands or shell scripts to discover things about the environment they are operating in. Environment variables can be changed or created by the user or a program. To see a list of environment variables type "setenv" at the csh or tcsh prompt or "set" at the sh, bash, jsh or ksh prompt. In other programming languages, e.g. functional programming languages, the environment is extended with new bindings when a function's parameters are bound to its actual arguments or when new variables are declared. In a block-structured procedural language, the environment usually consists of a linked list of activation records.
- equilibrium constant — The equilibrium constant is the ratio between the amount of reactants and the amount of product for a particular chemical reaction, used to calculate chemical behavior.
- feast of tabernacles — Sukkoth.
- fold-and-thrust belt — a linear or arcuate region of the earth's surface that has been subjected to severe folding and thrust faulting
- fontainebleau school — a group of artists, many of them Italian and Flemish, who worked on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau in the 16th century.
- football hooliganism — the actions or behaviour of a football hooligan
- for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
- forbidden transition — an electronic transition in an atom, molecule, etc, that is not permitted by electric dipole selection rules
- front-to-back engine — an engine in which the crankshaft is arranged front to back along the axis of the vehicle
- 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
- hildegard von bingen — Hildegard von (Hildegard of Bingen"Sibyl of the Rhine") 1098–1178, German nun, healer, writer, and composer.
- 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
- hudson's bay company — a company chartered in England in 1670 to carry on fur trading with the Indians in North America.
- human parvovirus b19 — Pathology. a mild infection, most often seen in children or young adults, caused by a small virus ((the human parvovirus B19)) and marked by a blotchy rash on the cheeks, arms, and legs.
- 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 contact (with sb) — If you are in contact with someone, you regularly meet them or communicate with them.
- in the public domain — able to be discussed and examined freely by the general public
- 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.