18-letter words containing a, b, r
- interchangeability — (of two things) capable of being put or used in the place of each other: interchangeable symbols.
- interdealer broker — an agent who is paid a commission to bring buyers and sellers together
- interdependability — capable of being depended on; worthy of trust; reliable: a dependable employee.
- intimate borrowing — the borrowing of linguistic forms by one language or dialect from another when both occupy a single geographical or cultural community.
- invisible earnings — earnings from services provided rather than goods
- ionization chamber — a device for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation, consisting of a tube containing a low pressure gas and two electrodes between which a high voltage is maintained. The current between the electrodes is a function of the intensity of the radiation
- irreconcilableness — The quality of being irreconcilable; irreconcilability; incompatibility; incongruity.
- irregular variable — a variable star whose brightness variation is irregular.
- irreproachableness — The quality or state of being irreproachable; integrity; innocence.
- isabella of france — 1292–1358, wife (1308–27) of Edward II of England, whom, aided by her lover, Roger de Mortimer, she deposed; mother of Edward III
- israel ben eliezer — (Israel ben Eliezer"Besht") c1700–60, Ukrainian teacher and religious leader: founder of the Hasidic movement of Judaism.
- jacobite rebellion — the unsuccessful Jacobite rising of 1715 led by James Francis Edward Stuart
- james baird weaver — James Baird, 1833–1912, U.S. politician: congressman 1879–81, 1885–89.
- johannes gutenberg — Johannes [yoh-hahn-uh s] /yoʊˈhɑn əs/ (Show IPA), (Johann Gensfleisch) c1400–68, German printer: credited with invention of printing from movable type.
- kakorrhaphiophobia — (rare) the fear of failure or defeat.
- kentucky bluegrass — a grass, Poa pratensis, of the Mississippi valley, used for pasturage and lawns.
- kirtland's warbler — a wood warbler, Dendroica kirtlandii, breeding only in north-central Michigan and wintering in the Bahamas, bluish gray above, striped with black and pale yellow below: an endangered species.
- knotted cranesbill — a British wildflower, Geranium nodosum, an meadow geranium with bright pink or purple flowers
- known lazy bastard — (abuse) (KLB) A term, used among technical support staff, for a user who repeatedly asks for help with problems whose solutions are clearly explained in the documentation, and persists in doing so after having been told to RTFM. KLBs are singled out for special treatment (i.e. ridicule), especially if they have been heard to say "It's so boring to read the manual! Why don't you just tell me?". The deepest pit in Hell is reserved for KLBs whose questions reveal total ignorance of the basic concepts (e.g., "How do I make a font in Excel?", "Where do I turn on my RAM?"), and who refuse to accept that their questions are neither simple nor well-formed.
- labeled bracketing — a representation of the constituent structure of a string, as a word or sentence, comparable to a tree diagram, in which each constituent is shown in brackets and given a subscript grammatical label, with each bracketed item corresponding to a node in a tree diagram.
- 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.
- lambeth conference — a convention of the bishops of the Anglican communion, held about every 10 years at Lambeth Palace to confer but not to define doctrine or to legislate on ecclesiastical matters.
- lawrence of arabia — D(avid) H(erbert) 1885–1930, English novelist.
- leatherback turtle — a sea turtle, Dermochelys coriacea, having the shell embedded in a leathery skin, reaching a length of more than 7 feet (2.1 meter) and a weight of more than 1000 pounds (450 kg): the largest living sea turtle; an endangered species.
- legislative branch — the branch of government having the power to make laws; the legislature.
- 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.
- little st. bernard — Great, a mountain pass between SW Switzerland and NW Italy, in the Pennine Alps: Napoleon led his army through it in 1800; location of a hospice. 8108 feet (2470 meters) high.
- lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
- lose one's marbles — If you say that someone has lost their marbles, you mean that their ideas or behaviour are very strange, as if they have become insane.
- lowell observatory — the astronomical observatory, situated in Flagstaff, Arizona, at which Pluto was discovered in 1930.
- lubber grasshopper — plains grasshopper.
- macroinvertebrates — Plural form of macroinvertebrate.
- madeira embroidery — broderie anglaise.
- make a beeline for — head directly towards
- mandelbrot, benoit — Benoit Mandelbrot
- manufacturing base — the manufacturing industries of an area or a country considered as a unit and a constituent part of the economy
- master boot record — (operating system, storage) A special area on a computer's main hard disk that gives the location of the disk's boot block or bootable partition where the operating system is installed.
- medicine bow range — a range of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming and Colorado. Highest peak, Medicine Bow Peak, 12,014 feet (3662 meters).
- membrane transport — the process by which physiologically important substances, such as calcium ions, sugars, etc, are conveyed across a biological membrane
- 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.
- 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)
- motor torpedo boat — PT boat.
- 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.
- naberezhnye chelny — a port in the Tatar Autonomous Republic, in the Russian Federation in Asia,e of Kazan, on the Kama River.
- napoleon bonaparte — Jérôme [juh-rohm;; French zhey-rohm] /dʒəˈroʊm;; French ʒeɪˈroʊm/ (Show IPA), 1784–1860, king of Westphalia 1807 (brother of Napoleon I).
- natural childbirth — childbirth involving little or no use of drugs or anesthesia and usually involving a program in which the mother is psychologically and physically prepared for the birth process.