14-letter words containing a, b, s, c
- balance spring — hairspring.
- ball of muscle — a very strong, fit, or forceful person
- ballast pocket — a depression that is formed beneath the ballast layer by penetration of ballast particles into the subgrade and that tends to collect moisture.
- ballistic wind — a single wind vector that would have the same net effect on the trajectory of a projectile as the varying winds encountered in flight.
- balsaminaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Balsaminaceae, a family of flowering plants, including balsam and touch-me-not, that have irregular flowers and explosive capsules
- balto-slavonic — a hypothetical subfamily of Indo-European languages consisting of Baltic and Slavonic. It is now generally believed that similarities between them result from geographical proximity rather than any special relationship
- banker's check — cashier's check.
- barbecue sauce — a highly seasoned sauce used in barbecuing
- bark chippings — small pieces of tree bark used chiefly for pathways in gardens or woodland
- barnacle goose — a N European goose, Branta leucopsis, that has a black-and-white head and body and grey wings
- barrack square — an open area near a military barracks where drills are performed
- barrel-chested — A barrel-chested man has a large, rounded chest.
- bascule bridge — a kind of drawbridge counterweighted so that it can be raised and lowered easily
- bascule-bridge — a device operating like a balance or seesaw, especially an arrangement of a movable bridge (bascule bridge) by which the rising floor or section is counterbalanced by a weight.
- base community — (especially in South America) a group of people taking part in religious devotions and Bible study, who seek to apply this in their socioeconomic and political situation.
- base component — the system of rules in a transformational grammar that specify the deep structure of the language
- basic industry — an industry which is highly important in a nation's economy
- basic training — Basic training is the training that someone receives when they first join the armed forces.
- basidiomycetes — Mycology. any of a group of fungi constituting the phylum Basidiomycota of the kingdom Fungi (or, in older classification schemes, the class Basidiomycetes of the kingdom Plantae), characterized by bearing the spores on a basidium, including the smuts, rust, mushrooms, and puffballs.
- basque country — Theregion comprising three provinces in N Spain, on the Bay of Biscay, inhabited by Basques: 2,803 sq mi (7,260 sq km); pop. 2,104,000
- basso cantante — a bass voice with an upper range that is more developed than that of the basso profundo.
- basso continuo — continuo.
- battle cruiser — A battle cruiser is a large fast warship that is lighter than a battleship and moves more easily.
- battle-scarred — adversely affected from the experience of battle, or some other traumatic experience
- bayonet socket — a socket for a bayonet fitting
- beaten biscuit — a hard, unleavened biscuit, made to rise by pounding and folding the dough.
- beaufort scale — an international scale of wind velocities ranging for practical purposes from 0 (calm) to 12 (hurricane force). In the US an extension of the scale, from 13 to 17 for winds over 64 knots, is used
- beauty contest — A beauty contest is a competition in which young women are judged to decide which one is the most beautiful.
- béchamel sauce — a thick white sauce flavoured with onion and seasonings
- bechamel-sauce — a white sauce, sometimes seasoned with onion and nutmeg.
- beclomethasone — a potent synthetic corticosteroid, C 28 H 37 ClO 7 , prepared as an inhalant in the treatment of bronchial asthma.
- becquerel rays — rays given off by radioactive substances
- beggar's-ticks — tick trefoil
- belisha beacon — a flashing light in an orange globe mounted on a post, indicating a pedestrian crossing on a road
- belletristical — relating to the fine arts
- belvoir castle — a castle in Leicestershire, near Grantham (in Lincolnshire): seat of the Dukes of Rutland; rebuilt by James Wyatt in 1816
- benday process — a process for adding tone or shading, as in reproducing drawings, by the overlay on the plate of patterns, as of dots
- beneficialness — the state of being beneficial
- berberidaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Berberidaceae, a mainly N temperate family of flowering plants (mostly shrubs), including barberry and barrenwort
- beta structure — a secondary structure occurring in many proteins, consisting of several polypeptide chains running in parallel or alternating directions and joined by intermolecular hydrogen bonds, creating a flexible, strong arrangement.
- bezier surface — (graphics) A surface defined by mathematical formulae, used in computer graphics. A surface P(u, v), where u and v vary orthogonally from 0 to 1 from one edge of the surface to the other, is defined by a set of (n+1)*(m+1) "control points" (X(i, j), Y(i, j), Z(i, j)) for i = 0 to n, j = 0 to m.
- biceps brachii — See under biceps.
- bicuspid valve — mitral valve
- bidialectalism — the state of being bidialectal
- bilious attack — a group of symptoms consisting of headache, abdominal pain, and constipation
- bioaeronautics — the use of aircraft in the discovery, development, and protection of natural and biological resources
- bioinformatics — the branch of information science concerned with large databases of biochemical or pharmaceutical information
- biomathematics — the study of the application of mathematics to biology
- biostatistical — relating to biostatistics
- biosystematics — the study of the variation and evolution of a population of organisms in relation to their taxonomic classification