16-letter words containing a, b, n
- relative bearing — the bearing of an object, relative to the heading of a vessel or aircraft.
- renewable energy — any naturally occurring, theoretically inexhaustible source of energy, as biomass, solar, wind, tidal, wave, and hydroelectric power, that is not derived from fossil or nuclear fuel.
- republican party — one of the two major political parties in the U.S.: originated 1854–56.
- republican river — a river flowing E from E Colorado through Nebraska and Kansas into the Kansas River. 422 miles (680 km) long.
- reserve buoyancy — the difference between the volume of a hull below the designed waterline and the volume of the hull below the lowest opening incapable of being made watertight.
- rhythm and blues — a folk-based but urbanized form of black popular music that is marked by strong, repetitious rhythms and simple melodies and was developed, in a commercialized form, into rock-'n'-roll.
- rhythm-and-blues — a folk-based but urbanized form of black popular music that is marked by strong, repetitious rhythms and simple melodies and was developed, in a commercialized form, into rock-'n'-roll.
- ribonucleic acid — RNA.
- right honourable — (in Britain and certain Commonwealth countries) a title of respect for a Privy Councillor or an appeal-court judge
- robin's plantain — the rattlesnake weed, Hieracium venosum.
- rough and tumble — characterized by violent, random, disorderly action and struggles: a rough-and-tumble fight; He led an adventuresome, rough-and-tumble life.
- rough-and-tumble — characterized by violent, random, disorderly action and struggles: a rough-and-tumble fight; He led an adventuresome, rough-and-tumble life.
- round lake beach — a town in NE Illinois.
- roundabout chair — corner chair.
- run the blockade — to go past or through a blockade
- run-time library — (operating system, programming, library) A file containing routines which are linked with a program at run time rather than at compile-time. The advantage of such dynamic linking is that only one copy of the library needs to be stored, rather than a copy being included with each executable that refers to it. This can greatly reduce the disk space occupied by programs. Furthermore, it means that all programs immediately benefit from changes (e.g. bug fixes) to the single copy of the library without requiring recompilation. Since the library code is normally classified as read-only to the memory management system, it is possible for a single copy of the library to be loaded into memory and shared by all active programs, thus reducing RAM and virtual memory requirements and program load time.
- saint petersburg — Also called Russian Empire. Russian Rossiya. a former empire in E Europe and N and W Asia: overthrown by the Russian Revolution 1917. Capital: St. Petersburg (1703–1917).
- saint-barthelemy — (Saint Bartholomew; Saint Barts; Saint Barths) a resort island in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands, part of the French department of Guadeloupe. 6900; 8 sq. mi. (21 sq. km).
- san buenaventura — a city in SW California.
- sandlot baseball — a form of baseball played by children on an area of vacant ground
- santiago de cuba — a region in Ecuador, E of the Andes: the border long disputed by Peru.
- save one's bacon — the back and sides of the hog, salted and dried or smoked, usually sliced thin and fried for food.
- scavenger beetle — any beetle of the mostly aquatic family Hydrophilidae, having clubbed antennae and long palps, and usually feeding on decaying vegetation
- school librarian — a librarian who works in or is in charge of a school library
- sebaceous glands — any of the cutaneous glands that secrete oily matter for lubricating hair and skin.
- security blanket — a blanket or other familiar item carried especially by a young child to provide reassurance and a feeling of psychological security.
- self-abandonment — absence or lack of personal restraint.
- self-approbation — approval; commendation.
- self-elaboration — an act or instance of elaborating.
- self-lubricating — to apply some oily or greasy substance to (a machine, parts of a mechanism, etc.) in order to diminish friction; oil or grease (something).
- self-lubrication — the process of becoming lubricated without external factors
- self-observation — an act or instance of noticing or perceiving.
- self-subjugation — the act, fact, or process of subjugating, or bringing under control; enslavement: The subjugation of the American Indians happened across the country.
- semantic tableau — a method of demonstrating the consistency or otherwise of a set of statements by constructing a diagrammatic representation of all the circumstances that satisfy the set of statements
- semi-hibernation — Zoology. to spend the winter in close quarters in a dormant condition, as bears and certain other animals. Compare estivate.
- semisubterranean — half below the surface of the ground: the semisubterranean houses of some Indian tribes.
- siberian mammoth — a shaggy-coated mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, that lived in cold regions across Eurasia and North America during the Ice Age, known from fossils, cave paintings, and well-preserved frozen carcasses.
- simeon ben yohai — flourished 2nd century a.d, Palestinian rabbi.
- simon boccanegra — an opera (1857) by Giuseppe Verdi.
- single-barrelled — (of a firearm) having a single barrel
- slap on the back — to congratulate
- smooth breathing — a symbol (') used in the writing of Greek to indicate that the initial vowel over which it is placed is unaspirated.
- snakebite remedy — hard liquor.
- sodium carbonate — Also called soda ash. an anhydrous, grayish-white, odorless, water-soluble powder, Na 2 CO 3 , usually obtained by the Solvay process and containing about 1 percent of impurities consisting of sulfates, chlorides, and bicarbonates of sodium: used in the manufacture of glass, ceramics, soaps, paper, petroleum products, sodium salts, as a cleanser, for bleaching, and in water treatment.
- soft brown sugar — a type of moist sugar made by coating white sugar with dark molasses
- sole beneficiary — the only beneficiary
- sounding balloon — a balloon carrying instruments aloft to make atmospheric measurements, especially a radiosonde balloon.
- southern baptist — a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, founded in Augusta, Georgia, in 1845, that is strictly Calvinistic and active in religious publishing and education.
- spanish bluebell — a bulbous plant, Endymion hispanicus, of the lily family, native to Spain and Portugal, having blue, white, or pink, bell-shaped flowers.
- st. john's-bread — carob (def 2).