17-letter words containing a, b, r, t
- camberwell beauty — a nymphalid butterfly, Nymphalis antiopa, of temperate regions, having dark purple wings with cream-yellow borders
- camberwell carrot — a large, almost conical, marijuana cigarette
- can't be bothered — If you say that you can't be bothered to do something, you mean that you are not going to do it because you think it is unnecessary or because you are too lazy.
- cantilever bridge — a bridge having spans that are constructed as cantilevers and often a suspended span or spans, each end of which rests on one end of a cantilever span
- carbon offsetting — a program in which a company, country, etc., reduces or offsets its carbon emissions through the funding of activities and projects that improve the environment: Carbon offsetting does not always have a quantifiable impact on the planet.
- caribbean current — an ocean current flowing westward through the Caribbean Sea.
- cariboo mountains — a mountain range in SW Canada, in SE British Columbia. Highest peak: Mount Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 3520 m (11 549 ft)
- centrifugal brake — a safety mechanism on a hoist, crane, etc, that consists of revolving brake shoes that are driven outwards by centrifugal force into contact with a fixed brake drum when the rope drum revolves at excessive speed
- cerebral accident — a disturbance of the blood supply to parts of the brain because of blockage or hemorrhage, causing unconsciousness, paralysis, etc.; stroke
- chamber orchestra — A chamber orchestra is a small orchestra which plays classical music.
- chateau cardboard — wine sold in a winebox
- chicklet keyboard — (spelling) It's spelled "chiclet keyboard".
- churchyard beetle — a blackish nocturnal ground beetle, Blaps mucronata, found in cellars and similar places
- cistern barometer — a mercury barometer in which the lower mercury surface has a greater area than the upper.
- city of gibraltar — a city on the Rock of Gibraltar, a limestone promontory at the tip of S Spain: settled by Moors in 711 and taken by Spain in 1462; ceded to Britain in 1713; a British crown colony (1830–1969), still politically associated with Britain; a naval and air base of strategic importance. Pop: 29 111 (2013 est). Area: 6.5 sq km (2.5 sq miles)
- civil libertarian — a person who actively supports or works for the protection or expansion of civil liberties.
- clare boothe luce — Clare Boothe, 1903–87, U.S. writer, politician, and diplomat.
- clear box testing — white box testing
- coliform bacteria — a large group of bacteria inhabiting the intestinal tract of humans and animals that may cause disease and whose presence in water is an indicator of faecal pollution
- collaborativeness — Quality of being collaborative.
- combinatory logic — (logic) A system for reducing the operational notation of logic, mathematics or a functional language to a sequence of modifications to the input data structure. First introduced in the 1920's by Schoenfinkel. Re-introduced independently by Haskell Curry in the late 1920's (who quickly learned of Schoenfinkel's work after he had the idea). Curry is really responsible for most of the development, at least up until work with Feys in 1958. See combinator.
- combine harvester — A combine harvester is a large machine which is used on farms to cut, sort, and clean grain.
- common of turbary — (in England) the legal right to cut peat for fuel on a common
- confirmation-bias — the tendency to process and analyze information in such a way that it supports one’s preexisting ideas and convictions: Confirmation bias is a major issue when we get all our news from social media sites. Unfortunately, their experimental method was proven invalid due to confirmation bias.
- contraband of war — war materiel, as ammunition or weapons, which, by international law, may rightfully be intercepted and seized by either belligerent when shipped to the other one by a neutral country
- contrasuggestible — responding or tending to respond to a suggestion by doing or believing the opposite
- creature of habit — If you say that someone is a creature of habit, you mean that they usually do the same thing at the same time each day, rather than doing new and different things.
- cross-lot bracing — bracing extending from one side of an excavation to the opposite to retain the earth on both sides.
- customs brokerage — the work of a customs broker
- cypriot syllabary — a syllabic script in use on Cyprus in the first millennium b.c., used for the writing of Greek and of an unknown language.
- cyrillic alphabet — the alphabet derived from that of the Greeks, supposedly by Saint Cyril, for the writing of Slavonic languages: now used primarily for Russian, Bulgarian, and the Serbian dialect of Serbo-Croat
- cytotrophoblastic — Relating to, or containing, cytotrophoblasts.
- dagestan republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the Caspian Sea: annexed from Persia in 1813; rich mineral resources. Capital: Makhachkala. Pop: 2 584 200 (2002). Area: 50 278 sq km (19 416 sq miles)
- debrett's peerage — a list of the British aristocracy
- denominate number — a number associated with a unit of measurement.
- differentiability — The ability to be differentiated.
- digital dashboard — (software) A personalised desktop portal that focuses on business intelligence and knowledge management.
- discreditableness — Quality of being discreditable.
- discrete variable — a variable that may assume only a countable, and usually finite, number of values.
- disrespectability — Lack of respectability.
- double quatrefoil — a charge having the form of a foil with eight leaves, used especially as the cadency mark of a ninth son.
- double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.
- double track line — a railway line with double track
- douglas engelbart — (person) Douglas C. Engelbart, the inventor of the mouse. On 1968-12-09, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California, USA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the on live system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse, hypertext, object addressing, dynamic file linking and shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface. The original 90-minute video: Hyperlinks, Mouse, Web-board.
- downward mobility — movement from one social level to a higher one (upward mobility) or a lower one (downward mobility) as by changing jobs or marrying.
- east siberian sea — a part of the Arctic Ocean, between Wrangel Island and the New Siberian Islands. 352,520 sq. mi. (913,000 sq. km).
- egyptian brackets — (programming, humour) A humourous term for K&R indent style, referring to the "one hand up in front, one down behind" pose which popular culture inexplicably associates with Egypt.
- electricity board — a company which supplies electricity
- embroidery thread — a thread used for embroidery
- english breakfast — An English breakfast is a breakfast consisting of cooked food such as bacon, eggs, sausages, and tomatoes. It also includes toast and tea or coffee.