18-letter words containing a, b, u, n, s
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
- flash butt welding — a method of welding metal edge-to-edge with a powerful electric flash followed by the application of pressure.
- furnishing fabrics — fabrics used to make and cover furniture
- gamblers anonymous — an organization that holds group meetings to help people who are addicted to gambling
- gamma distribution — a continuous two-parameter distribution from which the chi-square and exponential distributions are derived, written Gamma (α. β), where α and β are greater than zero, and defined in terms of the gamma function
- handlebar mustache — A handlebar mustache is a long thick mustache with curled ends.
- heat of combustion — the heat evolved when one mole of a substance is burnt in oxygen at constant volume
- highbush cranberry — a shrub, Viburnum trilobum, of northern North America, having broad clusters of white flowers and edible scarlet berries.
- hydrofluorocarbons — Plural form of hydrofluorocarbon.
- ifs, ands, or buts — a supposition; uncertain possibility: The future is full of ifs.
- incommensurability — not commensurable; having no common basis, measure, or standard of comparison.
- insurable interest — a financial or other interest in the life or property covered by an insurance contract, without which the contract cannot be enforced
- 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.
- kentucky bluegrass — a grass, Poa pratensis, of the Mississippi valley, used for pasturage and lawns.
- last but not least — lastly
- lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
- malpighian tubules — one of a group of long, slender excretory tubules at the anterior end of the hindgut in insects and other terrestrial arthropods.
- manufacturing base — the manufacturing industries of an area or a country considered as a unit and a constituent part of the economy
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- nebular hypothesis — the theory that the solar system evolved from a mass of nebular matter: prominent in the 19th century following its precise formulation by Laplace.
- non-understandable — capable of being understood; comprehensible.
- payment by results — a system of wage payment whereby all or part of the wage varies systematically according to the level of work performance of an employee
- personal bodyguard — a person employed to protect a particular person
- plumber's merchant — a shop or business that sells things needed for the job of installing and repairing pipes, fixtures, etc, for water, drainage, and gas
- publishing company — a firm which publishes books
- pulmonary embolism — the blockage of a pulmonary artery, often by a blood clot, that stops the flow of blood to the lungs and which can result in death if untreated
- punishment beating — a form of corporal punishment carried out by a paramilitary organization on a member of another sectarian organization, usually in Northern Ireland
- pyramus and thisbe — (in Greek legend) two lovers of Babylon: Pyramus, wrongly supposing Thisbe to be dead, killed himself and she, encountering him in his death throes, did the same
- remembrance sunday — the second Sunday in November, which is the Sunday closest to November 11, the anniversary of the armistice of 1918 that ended World War I, on which the dead of both World Wars are commemorated
- reversionary bonus — a bonus added to the sum payable on death or at the maturity of a with-profits assurance policy
- run in sb's family — If a characteristic runs in someone's family, it often occurs in members of that family, in different generations.
- saturation bombing — intense area bombing intended to destroy everything in the target area.
- seven-league boots — mythical boots that allowed the wearer to travel seven leagues (a former unit of measurement), ie a great length, at each step
- simone de beauvoir — Simone [see-mawn] /siˈmɔn/ (Show IPA), (Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand) 1908–86, French playwright, novelist, and essayist.
- sodium bicarbonate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble solid, in powder or granules, NaHCO 3 , usually prepared by the reaction of soda ash with carbon dioxide or obtained from the intermediate product of the Solvay process by purification: used chiefly in the manufacture of sodium salts, baking powder, and beverages, as a laboratory reagent, as a fire extinguisher, and in medicine as an antacid.
- strangeness number — a quantum number, designating the strangeness of an elementary particle, equivalent to the hypercharge minus the baryon number
- stroustrup, bjarne — Bjarne Stroustrup
- sub-classification — to arrange in subclasses.
- sub-saharan africa — the region of Africa to the south of the Sahara desert
- subliminal message — a message passed to the human mind without the mind being consciously aware of it, as, for example, in advertising
- submarine sandwich — a sandwich made with a long cylindrical bread roll
- submaxillary gland — submandibular gland.
- subordinate clause — a clause that modifies the principal clause or some part of it or that serves a noun function in the principal clause, as when she arrived in the sentence I was there when she arrived or that she has arrived in the sentence I doubt that she has arrived.
- subsidiary company — a company whose controlling interest is owned by another company.
- subsistence farmer — a farmer who consumes most of the produce he grows, leaving little or nothing to be marketed
- the blue hen state — a nickname for the state of Delaware
- the queen of sheba — a queen of the Sabeans, who visited Solomon (I Kings 10:1–13)
- to bare one's soul — If you bare your soul, you tell someone your most secret thoughts and feelings.
- to put years on sb — if you say that something such as an experience or a way of dressing has put years on someone, you mean that it has made them look or feel much older
- transfinite number — an infinite cardinal or ordinal number.