12-letter words containing a, b, s, i
- bastard file — a file of the commercial grade of coarseness between coarse and second-cut.
- bastard wing — a tuft of feathers attached to the first digit of a bird, distinct from the wing feathers attached to the other digits and the ulna
- bastardizing — Present participle of bastardize.
- bastille day — (in France) an annual holiday on July 14, commemorating the fall of the Bastille
- bastinadoing — Present participle of bastinado.
- bathing suit — A bathing suit is a piece of clothing which people wear when they go swimming.
- bathophilous — (of an organism) living in very deep water
- battlefields — Plural form of battlefield.
- beaconsfield — a town in SE England, in Buckinghamshire. Pop: 12 292 (2001)
- beamsplitter — Alternative spelling of beam splitter.
- bear witness — to give written or oral testimony
- bearskin rug — the pelt of a bear, used as a rug
- beaumarchais — Pierre Augustin Caron de (pjɛr oɡystɛ̃ karɔ̃ də). 1732–99, French dramatist, noted for his comedies The Barber of Seville (1775) and The Marriage of Figaro (1784)
- beautifulest — (dated) Most beautiful; more beautiful than anyone or anything else.
- beauty strip — a narrow forest corridor left uncut alongside a road or body of water.
- bed of nails — a situation or position of extreme difficulty
- bedside lamp — a lamp beside a bed
- beggar-ticks — any of various plants, such as the bur marigold and tick trefoil, having fruits or seeds that cling to clothing, fur, etc
- behaviourism — Behaviourism is the belief held by some psychologists that the only valid method of studying the psychology of people or animals is to observe how they behave.
- below stairs — People sometimes use below stairs to refer to the servants in a rich household and the things that are connected with them.
- bernina alps — a mountain group in SE Switzerland, extending from the Rhateian Alps on the Italian border. Highest peak, Piz Bernina, 13,304 feet (4055 meters).
- bernina pass — a pass in the Alps between SE Switzerland and N Italy, east of Piz Bernina. Height: 2323 m (7622 ft)
- beta orionis — Rigel
- beta testing — (programming) Evaluation of a pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software (or possibly hardware) by making it available to selected users ("beta testers") before it goes on general distribution. Beta testign aims to discover bugs that only occur in certain environments or under certain patterns of use, while reducing the volume of feedback to a manageable level. The testers benefit by having earlier access to new products, features and fixes. Beta testing may be preceded by "alpha testing", performed in-house by a handful of users (e.g. other developers or friends), who can be expected to give rapid, high quality feedback on design and usability. Once the product is considered to be usable for its intended purpose it then moves on to "beta testing" by a larger, but typically still limited, number of ordinary users, who may include external customers. Some companies such as Google or Degree Jungle stretch the definition, claiming their products are "in beta" for many months by millions of users. The term derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout the industry. "Alpha test" was the unit test, module test or component test phase; "Beta Test" was initial system test. These themselves came from earlier A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a feasibility and manufacturability evaluation done before any commitment to design and development. The B-test was a demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified. The C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed on early samples of the production design.
- beta version — beta testing
- beth midrash — a place where Jews gather to study the Talmud and other religious writings; a small synagogue.
- beth shammai — the school of Jewish legal thought and hermeneutics founded in Jerusalem in the 1st century b.c. by the Jewish teacher Shammai and characterized by an austere or rigid interpretation of Jewish law and tradition.
- bias binding — a strip of material cut on the bias for extra stretch and often doubled, used for binding hems, interfacings, etc, or for decoration
- bib overalls — overall (def 3a).
- bicameralism — having two branches, chambers, or houses, as a legislative body.
- bidialectism — proficient in or using two dialects of the same language.
- bien pensant — a right-thinking person
- bilateralism — the practice of being bilateral
- bilharziasis — schistosomiasis
- bilingualism — Bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages equally well.
- bill of sale — a deed transferring personal property, either outright or as security for a loan or debt
- billingsgate — the largest fish market in London, on the N bank of the River Thames; moved to new site at Canary Wharf in 1982 and the former building converted into offices
- bio-organism — a dangerous fast-proliferating organism that could be used as the basis of a biological weapon
- bioacoustics — the study of animals' use of sound
- bioastronomy — the branch of biology which deals with the study or the discovery of life forms on other planets or in space
- biohazardous — a pathogen, especially one used in or produced by biological research.
- biomagnetics — the study of magnetic fields as a form of therapy
- biomagnetism — animal magnetism.
- biomechanics — the study of the mechanics of the movement of living organisms
- biosatellite — an artificial satellite for carrying living organisms
- biscay green — a yellowish green.
- biscayne bay — an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, on the SE coast of Florida, separating the cities of Miami and Miami Beach.
- biscuit ware — unglazed earthenware
- bishop's-cap — any of a genus (Mitella) of small woodland plants of the saxifrage family, with two-lobed seedcases shaped like a bishop's hat
- bismarck sea — an arm of the Pacific Ocean north of New Britain and north-east of New Guinea