18-letter words containing a, b, o, i
- knight of the bath — a member of a knightly order founded by George I of England in 1725.
- knotted cranesbill — a British wildflower, Geranium nodosum, an meadow geranium with bright pink or purple flowers
- labrador retriever — one of a breed of retrievers having a short, thick, oily, solid black or yellow coat, raised originally in Newfoundland.
- lambda abstraction — A term in lambda-calculus denoting a function. A lambda abstraction begins with a lower-case lambda (represented as "\" in this document), followed by a variable name (the "bound variable"), a full stop and a lambda expression (the body). The body is taken to extend as far to the right as possible so, for example an expression, \ x . \ y . x+y is read as \ x . (\ y . x+y). A nested abstraction such as this is often abbreviated to: \ x y . x + y The lambda expression (\ v . E) denotes a function which takes an argument and returns the term E with all free occurrences of v replaced by the actual argument. Application is represented by juxtaposition so (\ x . x) 42 represents the identity function applied to the constant 42. A lambda abstraction in Lisp is written as the symbol lambda, a list of zero or more variable names and a list of zero or more terms, e.g. (lambda (x y) (plus x y)) Lambda expressions in Haskell are written as a backslash, "\", one or more patterns (e.g. variable names), "->" and an expression, e.g. \ x -> x.
- lawrence of arabia — D(avid) H(erbert) 1885–1930, English novelist.
- lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
- linear combination — a sum of products of each quantity times a constant: The expression aX + bY + cZ is a linear combination of X, Y, and Z, where a, b, and c are constants.
- lingual titubation — stuttering or stammering
- logically possible — capable of being described without self-contradiction
- macroinvertebrates — Plural form of macroinvertebrate.
- madeira embroidery — broderie anglaise.
- make a beeline for — head directly towards
- mandelbrot, benoit — Benoit Mandelbrot
- medicine bow range — a range of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming and Colorado. Highest peak, Medicine Bow Peak, 12,014 feet (3662 meters).
- metabolic syndrome — Pathology. a group of medical conditions present simultaneously in a patient, as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, and an excess of abdominal fat, that increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Also called insulin resistance syndrome.
- microinvertebrates — Plural form of microinvertebrate.
- mobile data system — a system consisting of a client computer requesting information and a server supplying this information
- mobility allowance — an allowance paid by the government to help people who have limited mobility
- mohammed ibn-kasim — flourished early 8th century a.d, Muslim conqueror of the Sind region in India.
- mordovian republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Saransk. Pop: 888 700 (2002). Area: 26 200 sq km (10 110 sq miles)
- mountain cranberry — cowberry
- moving bed reactor — A moving bed reactor is a reactor in which a layer of catalyst in the form of granules is moved between a reaction area and a regeneration area.
- mozambique channel — a channel in SE Africa, between Mozambique and Madagascar. 950 miles (1530 km) long; 250–550 miles (400–885 km) wide.
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- nebular hypothesis — the theory that the solar system evolved from a mass of nebular matter: prominent in the 19th century following its precise formulation by Laplace.
- neighborhood watch — a neighborhood surveillance program or group in which residents keep watch over one another's houses, patrol the streets, etc., in an attempt to prevent crime.
- nobiliary particle — a preposition forming part of a title of nobility or surname, as French de or German von.
- non-accountability — the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.
- nonachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of three isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing nine chlorine atoms.
- noninterchangeable — That cannot be interchanged with another.
- notifiable disease — any one of a number of infectious diseases of humans and animals, that must be reported to the public health authorities
- obedience training — the training of an animal, especially a dog, to obey certain commands.
- object-orientation — object-oriented
- objective idealism — a form of idealism asserting that the act of experiencing has a reality combining and transcending the natures of the object experienced and of the mind of the observer.
- objective modula-2 — (language) (Or "ObjM2") An extension to Modula-2 for Cocoa and GNUstep software development. Objective Modula-2 follows the Objective-C object model and retains the bracketed Smalltalk message passing syntax used in Objective-C. Classes written in ObjM2 can be used within ObjC and vice versa. ObjM2 also retains Modula-2's data encapsulation features, namely nested modules with explicit import and export lists. Due to the strict type checking in Modula-2, ObjM2 can be considered a much safer programming language than is ObjC, yet losing none of the capabilities of ObjC.
- oblique-slip fault — a fault on which the movement is along both the strike and the dip of the fault
- octachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of twelve isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing eight chlorine atoms.
- optical brightener — an additive that dyes and brightens fabric or paper
- oriental alabaster — alabaster (def 2).
- passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
- pileolated warbler — either of two western subspecies of Wilson's warbler.
- point-bearing pile — a pile depending on the soil or rock beneath its foot for support.
- political football — a political issue that is continually debated but has not yet been resolved
- population balance — A population balance is a model showing particle sizes during a grinding process, which is used when designing a process.
- portable equipment — Portable equipment is electrical equipment that can easily be moved from one place to another while in operation or while connected to the supply.
- prairie wake-robin — a woodland trillium, Trillium recurvatum, of the central U.S., having purple-mottled leaves and brown-purple flowers.
- prepositional verb — a combination of verb and preposition, often with idiomatic meaning, differing from other phrasal verbs in that an object must always follow the preposition, as take after in The children take after their mother.
- price on sb's head — If there is a price on someone 's head, an amount of money has been offered for the capture or killing of that person.
- probability theory — the theory of analyzing and making statements concerning the probability of the occurrence of uncertain events. Compare probability (def 4).
- protease inhibitor — a drug that inhibits the action of protease, especially any of a class of antiviral drugs that prevent the cleavage and replication of HIV proteins.