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12-letter words containing a, b, o

  • breastplough — a plough driven by the worker's breast, often used to pare turf
  • breaststroke — Breaststroke is a swimming stroke which you do lying on your front, moving your arms and legs horizontally in a circular motion.
  • breath group — a sequence of sounds articulated in the course of a single exhalation; an utterance or part of an utterance produced between pauses for breath.
  • breechloader — any gun loaded at the breech
  • breed of cat — type; sort; variety: The new airplane is a completely different breed of cat from any that has been designed before.
  • bring action — to start a lawsuit
  • bring around — If you bring someone around when they are unconscious, you make them become conscious again.
  • bring to bay — to force into a position from which retreat is impossible
  • brisbane box — a broad-leaved evergreen tree, Tristania conferta, native to Australia, having a deciduous outer bark.
  • broad church — You can refer to an organization, group, or area of activity as a broad church when it includes a wide range of opinions, beliefs, or styles.
  • broad jumper — a participant in the long jump.
  • broad-leaved — denoting trees other than conifers, most of which have broad rather than needle-shaped leaves
  • broad-minded — If you describe someone as broad-minded, you approve of them because they are willing to accept types of behaviour which other people consider immoral.
  • broadcasting — Broadcasting is the making and sending out of television and radio programmes.
  • broca's area — the region of the cerebral cortex of the brain concerned with speech; the speech centre
  • brochureware — (jargon, business)   A planned, but non-existent, product, like vaporware but with the added implication that marketing is actively selling and promoting it (they've printed brochures). Brochureware is often deployed to con customers into not committing to a competing existing product. The term is now especially applicable to new websites, website revisions, and ancillary services such as customer support and product return. Owing to the explosion of database-driven, cookie-using dot-coms (of the sort that can now deduce that you are, in fact, a dog), the term is now also used to describe sites made up of static HTML pages that contain not much more than contact info and mission statements. The term suggests that the company is small, irrelevant to the web, local in scope, clueless, broke, just starting out, or some combination thereof. Many new companies without product, funding, or even staff, post brochureware with investor info and press releases to help publicise their ventures. As of December 1999, examples include pop.com and cdradio.com. Small-timers that really have no business on the web such as lawncare companies and divorce laywers inexplicably have brochureware made that stays unchanged for years.
  • broken arrow — a town in NE Oklahoma.
  • broken heart — If you say that someone has a broken heart, you mean that they are very sad, for example because a love affair has ended unhappily.
  • broken water — a patch of water whose surface is rippled or choppy, usually surrounded by relatively calm water.
  • bromoacetone — a colorless and highly toxic liquid, CH 2 BrCOCH 3 , used as a lachrymatory compound in tear gas and chemical warfare gas.
  • bromomethane — methyl bromide.
  • bronchospasm — an abnormal contraction of the bronchi resulting in restriction of the airway
  • brontosaurus — any very large herbivorous quadrupedal dinosaur of the genus Apatosaurus, common in North America during Jurassic times, having a long neck and long tail: suborder Sauropoda (sauropods)
  • bronze medal — A bronze medal is a medal made of bronze or bronze-coloured metal that is given as a prize to the person who comes third in a competition, especially a sports contest.
  • brooks range — a mountain range in N Alaska. Highest peak: Mount Isto, 2761 m (9058 ft)
  • brooks's law — (programming)   "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" - a result of the fact that the expected advantage from splitting work among N programmers is O(N) (that is, proportional to N), but the complexity and communications cost associated with coordinating and then merging their work is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the square of N). The quote is from Fred Brooks, a manager of IBM's OS/360 project and author of "The Mythical Man-Month". The myth in question has been most tersely expressed as "Programmer time is fungible" and Brooks established conclusively that it is not. Hackers have never forgotten his advice; too often, management still does. See also creationism, second-system effect, optimism.
  • brown bag it — to bring (one's own liquor) to a restaurant or club, especially one that has no liquor license.
  • brown bagger — to bring (one's own liquor) to a restaurant or club, especially one that has no liquor license.
  • brown canker — a fungous disease of roses, characterized by leaf and flower lesions, stem cankers surrounded by a reddish-purple border, and dieback.
  • brown hackle — an artificial fly having a peacock herl body, golden tag and tail, and brown hackle.
  • bubble float — a hollow spherical float that can be weighted with water to aid casting
  • buccolingual — of or relating to the cheek and tongue.
  • bucket about — (esp of a boat in a storm) to toss or shake violently
  • bud mutation — a variation produced by a genetic alteration in the bud such that the seeds produced by the resulting growth perpetuate the change in succeeding generations.
  • buenos aires — the capital of Argentina, a major port and industrial city on the Río de la Plata estuary: became capital in 1880; university (1821). Pop: 13 349 000 (2005 est)
  • buffalo bill — nickname of William Frederick Cody. 1846–1917, US showman who toured Europe and the US with his famous Wild West Show
  • buffalo bird — a cowbird, Molothrus ater, of North America.
  • buffalo fish — any of a genus (Ictiobus) of large, humpbacked, freshwater sucker fishes found in North America
  • buffalo gnat — any of various small North American blood-sucking dipterous insects of the genus Simulium and related genera: family Simuliidae
  • buffalo robe — a carriage robe or rug made of the skin of the bison, dressed with the hair on
  • buffaloberry — any shrub of the genus Shepherdia native to North America
  • bugger about — If someone buggers about or buggers around, they waste time doing unnecessary things.
  • bullock cart — a cart pulled by one or two bullocks
  • bunco artist — a confidence trickster or con artist
  • buoyancy aid — a type of usually foam-filled lifejacket designed for use in sports such as canoeing
  • bur marigold — any plant of the genus Bidens that has yellow flowers and pointed fruits that cling to fur and clothing: family Asteraceae (composites)
  • burglarproof — safeguarded or secure against burglary.
  • burial mound — a barrow
  • burkina faso — an inland republic in W Africa: dominated by Mossi kingdoms (10th–19th centuries); French protectorate established in 1896; became an independent republic in 1960; consists mainly of a flat savanna plateau. Official language: French; Mossi and other African languages also widely spoken. Religion: mostly animist, with a large Muslim minority. Currency: franc. Capital: Ouagadougou. Pop: 17 812 961 (2013 est). Area: 273 200 sq km (105 900 sq miles)
  • burnt almond — a sweet consisting of an almond enclosed in burnt sugar
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