12-letter words containing a, b, s, o
- bastel house — (on the Anglo-Scottish border) a partly fortified house, usually with a vaulted ground floor.
- bastinadoing — Present participle of bastinado.
- bathophilous — (of an organism) living in very deep water
- batter's box — box1 (def 16a).
- battlefronts — Plural form of battlefront.
- battlewagons — Plural form of battlewagon.
- be at a loss — If you say that you are at a loss, you mean that you do not know what to do in a particular situation.
- beachcombers — Plural form of beachcomber.
- beaconsfield — a town in SE England, in Buckinghamshire. Pop: 12 292 (2001)
- beam compass — an instrument for drawing large circles or arcs, consisting of a horizontal beam along which two vertical legs slide
- bean sprouts — the sprouts of newly germinated mung beans, eaten as a vegetable, esp in Chinese dishes
- bean-shooter — peashooter.
- beardtongues — Plural form of beardtongue.
- beaufort sea — part of the Arctic Ocean off the N coast of North America
- beauty salon — A beauty salon is the same as a beauty parlour.
- bed of nails — a situation or position of extreme difficulty
- 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.
- beta orionis — Rigel
- beta version — beta testing
- bib overalls — overall (def 3a).
- bill of sale — a deed transferring personal property, either outright or as security for a loan or debt
- 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
- 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
- bitter aloes — a bitter purgative drug made from the leaves of several species of aloe
- black cohosh — a plant of the ranunculaceous family, Cimicifuga racemosa, which is used as a natural alternative to hormone replacement therapy
- black cosmos — a garden plant, Cosmos diversifolius, of Mexico, having small, dahlialike tubers and solitary flower heads with red disk flowers and velvety, dark-red or purplish ray flowers.
- black forest — wooded mountain region in SW Germany
- black grouse — a large N European grouse, Lyrurus tetrix, the male of which has a bluish-black plumage and lyre-shaped tail
- black locust — Also called false acacia, yellow locust. a North American tree, Robinia pseudoacacia, of the legume family, having pinnate leaves and clusters of fragrant white flowers.
- black sapote — a tropical American tree, Diospyros digyna, related to the persimmon, having sweet, edible, green fruit that turns black when ripe.
- black scoter — a scoter of Eurasia and North America, Melanitta nigra, the adult male of which is black.
- blanket toss — a game in which a person is repeatedly tossed into the air and caught on an open blanket by a group of people who hold the blanket at its edges and stretch and relax it for each toss and catch.
- blastocoelic — of or relating to the blastocoel
- blastomycete — any of a genus (Blastomyces) of yeastlike imperfect fungi that cause diseases in people and animals
- blastosphere — blastula
- blastulation — the process of blastula formation
- block island — an island off the coast of and a part of Rhode Island, at the E entrance to Long Island Sound.
- block signal — a fixed railroad signal governing the movements of trains entering and using a given section of track.
- blood plasma — the pale yellow fluid portion of the blood; blood from which red and white blood cells and platelets have been removed
- blood sample — an amount of a person's blood taken from their body for use in medical tests
- blood spavin — a disease of the hock joint of horses in which enlargement occurs because of collected fluids (bog spavin) bony growth (bone spavin) or distention of the veins (blood spavin)
- bloodstained — Someone or something that is bloodstained is covered with blood.