16-letter words containing a, b, r, h
- birchbark biting — a Native Canadian craft in which designs are bitten onto bark from birch trees
- bird in the hand — any warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, having a body covered with feathers, forelimbs modified into wings, scaly legs, a beak, and no teeth, and bearing young in a hard-shelled egg.
- birthday honours — (in Britain) honorary titles conferred on the official birthday of the sovereign
- birthday present — a gift given to someone on their birthday
- birthwort family — the plant family Aristolochiaceae, typified by mostly tropical woody vines and herbaceous plants, having alternate, heart-shaped leaves and flowers lacking true petals but having three petallike sepals, and including the birthwort, Dutchman's-pipe, and wild ginger.
- bismarck herring — marinaded herring, served cold
- black chokeberry — See under chokeberry (def 1).
- black-light trap — a trap for insects that uses ultraviolet light as an attractant.
- bleaching powder — a white powder with the odour of chlorine, consisting of chlorinated calcium hydroxide with an approximate formula CaCl(OCl).4H2O. It is used in solution as a bleaching agent and disinfectant
- bonded warehouse — a warehouse in which dutiable goods are deposited until duty is paid or the goods are cleared for export
- bonhomme richard — the flagship of John Paul Jones.
- boreal chickadee — a brown-capped, black-throated chickadee (Parus hudsonicus) found near the Atlantic coast from Labrador to N New York
- bornholm disease — an epidemic virus infection characterized by pain round the base of the chest
- brake horsepower — the rate at which an engine does work, expressed in horsepower. It is measured by the resistance of an applied brake
- branchial groove — one of a series of rudimentary depressions on the surface of the embryo between adjacent branchial arches, homologous to the branchial clefts of gill-breathing ancestral forms.
- branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
- break faith with — If you break faith with someone you made a promise to or something you believed in, you stop acting in a way that supports them.
- break sb's heart — If something breaks your heart, it makes you feel very sad and depressed, especially because people are suffering but you can do nothing to help them.
- break the record — surpass previous highest, best
- breath freshener — a mint or other sweet that one can suck or chew to release a scent that freshens the breath
- bright and early — very early in the morning
- bright's disease — chronic inflammation of the kidneys; chronic nephritis
- british columbia — a province of W Canada, on the Pacific coast: largely mountainous with extensive forests, rich mineral resources, and important fisheries. Capital: Victoria. Pop: 4 400 057 (2011 est). Area: 930 532 sq km (359 279 sq miles)
- british honduras — Belize
- british longhair — a breed of large cat with a semi-long thick soft coat
- broad-shouldered — having broad shoulders
- bronchial asthma — asthma.
- bronchopneumonia — inflammation of the lungs, originating in the bronchioles
- brother jonathan — the United States or its people: predecessor of Uncle Sam
- buckthorn family — the plant family Rhamnaceae, characterized by shrubs and trees having alternate, simple leaves, clusters of small flowers, and fruit in the form of a drupe or capsule, and including the buckthorn, cascara, and New Jersey tea.
- buoyancy chamber — an enclosed section of a canoe, float, ship or other object that contains air, foam, or another buoyant substance in order to help maintain buoyancy
- bureau de change — a place where foreign currencies can be exchanged
- burkitt lymphoma — a rare type of tumour of the white blood cells, occurring mainly in Africa and associated with infection by Epstein-Barr virus
- bury the hatchet — to cease hostilities and become reconciled
- buttercup squash — a small, usually dark-green squash that is a variety of Cucurbita maxima, having sweet orange flesh.
- butternut squash — a variety of squash with brownish-yellow rind and orange flesh
- buying behaviour — the behaviours displayed by consumers when they purchase things, such as preferences, price points, etc
- byzantine church — Orthodox Church (def 1).
- cabbage-tree hat — a broad-brimmed hat made from cabbage-tree leaves.
- caducibranchiate — (of many amphibians, such as frogs) having gills during one stage of the life cycle only
- camborne-redruth — a former (until 1974) urban district in SW England, in Cornwall: formed in 1934 by the amalgamation of the neighbouring towns of Camborne and Redruth. Pop: 39 936 (2001)
- cathode ray tube — (hardware) (CRT) An electrical device for displaying images by exciting phosphor dots with a scanned electron beam. CRTs are found in computer VDUs and monitors, televisions and oscilloscopes. The first commercially practical CRT was perfected on 29 January 1901 by Allen B DuMont. A large glass envelope containing a negative electrode (the cathode) emits electrons (formerly called "cathode rays") when heated, as in a vacuum tube. The electrons are accelerated across a large voltage gradient toward the flat surface of the tube (the screen) which is covered with phosphor. When an electron strikes the phosphor, light is emitted. The electron beam is deflected by electromagnetic coils around the outside of the tube so that it scans across the screen, usually in horizontal stripes. This scan pattern is known as a raster. By controlling the current in the beam, the brightness at any particular point (roughly a "pixel") can be varied. Different phosphors have different "persistence" - the length of time for which they glow after being struck by electrons. If the scanning is done fast enough, the eye sees a steady image, due to both the persistence of the phospor and of the eye itself. CRTs also differ in their dot pitch, which determines their spatial resolution, and in whether they use interlace or not.
- cathode-ray tube — A cathode-ray tube is a device in televisions and computer terminals which sends an image onto the screen.
- cepheid variable — any of a class of variable stars with regular cycles of variations in luminosity (most ranging from three to fifty days). There is a relationship between the periods of variation and the absolute magnitudes, which is used for measuring the distance of such stars
- chamber of trade — a national organization representing local chambers of commerce
- chargeable asset — any asset that can give rise to assessment for capital gains tax on its disposal. Exempt assets include principal private residences, cars, investments held in a personal equity plan, and government securities
- charitable trust — a trust set up for the benefit of a charity that complies with the regulations of the Charity Commissioners to enable it to be exempt from paying income tax
- chernobyl packet — (networking) /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ A network packet that induces a broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, named in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and destination Ethernet address and IP address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare Christmas tree packet.
- chiclet keyboard — (hardware, abuse) A keyboard with a small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like pieces of Chiclets chewing gum. Used especially to describe the original IBM PCjr keyboard. Vendors unanimously liked these because they were cheap, and a lot of early portable and laptop computers were launched with them. Customers rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and chiclets are not often seen on anything larger than a digital watch any more.
- chilean firebush — South American shrub with scarlet flowers