19-letter words containing a, b, s, e
- the retail business — the business sector in which goods are sold individually or in small quantities to consumers
- throw oneself at sb — If someone throws themselves at you, they make it very obvious that they want to begin a relationship with you, by behaving as though they are sexually attracted to you.
- throw sth overboard — If you throw something overboard, for example an idea or suggestion, you reject it completely.
- thumb one's nose at — to deride or mock, esp by placing the thumb on the nose with fingers extended
- to be a showstopper — to be very impressive; to be sensational
- to be full of beans — If someone is full of beans, they are very lively and have a lot of energy and enthusiasm.
- to be headline news — to attract a lot of attention from newspapers
- to be in the charts — (of a record or pop group) to be popular
- to blow a raspberry — If you blow a raspberry, you make a sound by putting your tongue out and blowing, in order to insult someone.
- to give sb a leg up — to help with climbing
- to make a fast buck — When someone makes a fast buck or makes a quick buck, they earn a lot of money quickly and easily, often by doing something which is considered to be dishonest.
- to make like sth/sb — If you make like you are doing something, you act as if you are doing it, and if you make like someone, you act as if you are that person.
- to take a back seat — If you take a back seat, you allow other people to have all the power and to make all the decisions.
- to take the biscuit — If someone has done something very stupid, rude, or selfish, you can say that they take the biscuit or that what they have done takes the biscuit, to emphasize your surprise at their behaviour.
- total probable loss — A total probable loss is the highest degree of loss or damage that is probable if an insured event occurs.
- touch all the bases — to deal with all related details
- transference number — that fraction of the total electric current that anions and cations carry in passing through an electrolytic solution.
- tubular steel chair — a chair with a frame made of tubular steel
- united presbyterian — a member of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, founded in Pittsburgh in 1858 by a union of two Presbyterian groups.
- upper carboniferous — Pennsylvanian (defs 2, 4).
- vertical stabilizer — the fixed vertical surface of an aircraft empennage, to which the rudder is hinged.
- very large database — (database) (VLDB) A database that can use a Very Large Memory model to keep as much data as possible in physical memory. (Oracle http://oracle.com/platforms/dec/collateral/vlmwp_3.html).
- wandering albatross — a large albatross, Diomedea exulans, of southern waters, having the plumage mostly white with dark markings on the upper parts.
- wassermann antibody — reagin (def 1).
- websters-dictionary — Informal. a dictionary of the English language, especially American English, such as Dictionary.com.
- west dunbartonshire — a council area of W central Scotland, on Loch Lomond and the Clyde estuary: corresponds to part of the historical county of Dunbartonshire; part of Strathclyde Region from 1975 to 1996: engineering industries. Administrative centre: Dumbarton. Pop: 92 320 (2003 est). Area: 162 sq km (63 sq miles)
- wet behind the ears — moistened, covered, or soaked with water or some other liquid: wet hands.
- work sb/os to death — If you say that someone works another person to death, you are emphasizing that they make them work very hard indeed, especially in a way that seems cruel or unfair.
- xt bus architecture — (hardware, architecture) (After the IBM PC XT) An eight-bit ISA bus architecture used by Intel 8086 and Intel 8088 systems in the IBM PC and IBM PC XT in the 1980s. It predates the 16-bit ISA architecture used on the Intel 80286 based machines. The XT bus has four DMA channels, of which three are brought out to the expansion slots. Of these three, two are normally allocated to machine functions: DMA channel Expansion Standard function 0 No {dynamic RAM} refresh 1 Yes add-on cards 2 Yes {floppy disk} controller 3 Yes {hard disc} controller (1997-09-15)
- zero-base budgeting — a process in government and corporate finance of justifying an overall budget or individual budgeted items each fiscal year or each review period rather than dealing only with proposed changes from a previous budget. Abbreviation: ZBB.