13-letter words containing a, b, y, i
- bacteriolysis — the destruction or disintegration of bacteria
- bacteriolytic — disintegration or dissolution of bacteria.
- bacteriophagy — the action of a bacteriophage
- bacterioscopy — the examination of bacteria with a microscope.
- bailey bridge — a temporary bridge made of prefabricated steel panels that can be rapidly assembled
- baily's beads — the brilliant points of sunlight that appear briefly around the moon, just before and after a total eclipse
- ballistically — of or relating to ballistics.
- balsam family — the plant family Balsaminaceae, typified by succulent stems, alternate, opposite, or whorled simple leaves, and irregular solitary or clustered flowers, including the balsam and jewelweed.
- banana family — the plant family Musaceae, characterized by large treelike herbaceous plants of tropical regions, having a trunk formed by spiraling leaf sheaths, and bearing large leaves, flower clusters above leathery red-to-purple bracts, and fleshy fruit in clusters, including the banana and plantain.
- band-aid baby — a child conceived to strengthen a faltering relationship
- barium yellow — a yellow, crystalline compound, BaCrO 4 , used as a pigment (barium yellow)
- barley stripe — a disease of barley, characterized by blighted heads and chlorotic, brown, or frayed stripes on the leaves, caused by a fungus, Helminthosporium gramineum.
- baroclinicity — a common state of fluid stratification in which surfaces of constant pressure and others of constant density are not parallel but intersect.
- barytocalcite — a mineral, double carbonate of calcium and barium, CaCO 3 ⋅BaCO 3 , usually found in veins of lead minerals.
- basidiomycete — any fungus of the phylum Basidiomycota (formerly class Basidiomycetes), in which the spores are produced in basidia. The group includes boletes, puffballs, smuts, and rusts
- bathylimnetic — (of an organism) living in the depths of lakes and marshes
- bay of biscay — a large bay of the Atlantic Ocean between W France and N Spain: notorious for storms
- beauty editor — the person in charge of a section of newspaper or magazine devoted to cosmetics, etc
- behaviourally — from a behavioural point of view
- believability — to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so: Only if one believes in something can one act purposefully.
- belly landing — the landing of an aircraft on its fuselage without use of its landing gear
- beneficiary's — a person or group that receives benefits, profits, or advantages.
- bias-ply tire — a vehicle tire in which the main plies or cords run across the bead.
- bibliothecary — a librarian
- bibliotherapy — the use of reading as therapy
- bicycle chain — a chain that transmits power from the pedals to the driving wheel of a bicycle
- big gray wall — (jargon) What faces a VMS user searching for documentation. A full VMS kit comes on a pallet, the documentation taking up around 15 feet of shelf space before the addition of layered products such as compilers, databases, multi-vendor networking, and programming tools. Recent (since VMS version 5) DEC documentation comes with grey binders; under VMS version 4 the binders were orange and under version 3 they were blue. Often contracted to "Gray Wall".
- big-heartedly — in a big-hearted manner
- bimolecularly — in a bimolecular fashion
- binary number — a number expressed in binary notation, as 1101.101 = 1 × 23 + 1 × 22 + 0 × 21 + 1 × 20 + 1 × 2–1 + 0 × 2–2 + 1 × 2–3 = 13 5⁄8
- binary prefix — (unit) (Or "IEC prefix") A prefix used with a unit of data to mean multiplication by a power of 1024. Binary prefixes are most often used with "byte" (e.g. "kilobyte") but also with bit (e.g. "megabit"). For example, the term kilobyte has historically been used to mean 1024 bytes, and megabyte to mean 1,048,576 bytes. The multipliers 1024 and 1,048,576 are powers of 1024, which is itself a power of two (1024 = 2^10). It is this factor of two that gives the name "binary prefix". This is in contrast to a decimal prefix denoting a power of 1000, which is itself a power of ten (1000 = 10^3). Decimal prefixes are used in science and engineering and are specified in widely adopted SI standards. Note that the actual prefix - kilo or mega - is the same, it is the interpretation that differs. The difference between the two interpretations increases with each multiplication, so while 1000 and 1024 differ by only 2.4%, 1000^6 and 1024^6 differ by 15%. The 1024-based interpretation of prefixes is often still used informally and especially when discussing the storage capacity of random-access memory. This has lead to storage device manufacturers being accused of false marketing for using the decimal interpretation where customers might assume the larger, historical, binary interpretation. In an attempt to clarify the distinction, in 1998 the IEC specified that kilobyte, megabyte, etc. should only be used for powers of 1000 (following SI). They specified new prefixes for powers of 1024 containing "bi" for "binary": kibibyte, mebibyte, etc.; an idea originally propsed by IUPAC. IEC also specified new abbreviations Ki, Mi, etc. for the new prefixes. Many other standards bodies such as NIST, IEEE and BIPM support this proposal but as of 2013 its use is rare in non-technical circles. Specific units of IEC 60027-2 A.2 and ISO/IEC 80000
- binary pulsar — a pulsar in a binary system.
- binary search — (algorithm) A search algorithm which repeatedly divides an ordered search space in half according to how the required (key) value compares with the middle element. The following pseudo-C routine performs a binary search return the index of the element of vector "thing[first..last]" equal to "target": if (target < thing[first] || target > thing[last]) return NOT_FOUND; while (first < last) { mid = (first+last)/2; /* truncate to integer */ if (target == thing[mid]) return mid; if (target < thing[mid]) last = mid-1; else first = mid+1; } if (target == thing[last]) return last; return NOT_FOUND; (2003-01-14)
- binary system — a system involving only two elements, as 0 and 1 or yes and no.
- binary weapon — a chemical weapon consisting of a projectile containing two substances separately that mix to produce a lethal agent when the projectile is fired
- bioautography — an analytical technique in which organic compounds are separated by chromatography and identified by studying their effects on microorganisms.
- biochemically — the science dealing with the chemistry of living matter.
- biosystematic — relating to biosystematics
- birthday bash — a birthday party
- birthday cake — a special cake eaten at a birthday party
- birthday card — a greeting card sent on someone's birthday
- birthday girl — the girl or woman whose birthday is being celebrated
- birthday suit — If you are in your birthday suit, you are not wearing any clothes.
- bisectionally — from a bisectional point of view
- black hickory — a species of smooth-barked hickory, Carya tomentosa, with fragrant foliage that turns bright yellow in autumn
- blastomycosis — a fungal infection particularly affecting the lungs
- blot analysis — a technique for analysing biological molecules, such as proteins (Western blot analysis), DNA (Southern blot analysis), and RNA (Northern blot analysis), involving their separation by gel electrophoresis, transfer to a nitrocellulose sheet, and subsequent analysis by autoradiography
- bombastically — (of speech, writing, etc.) high-sounding; high-flown; inflated; pretentious.
- bombax family — the plant family Bombacaceae, typified by tropical deciduous trees having palmate leaves, large and often showy solitary or clustered flowers, and dry fruit with a woolly pulp, and including the baobab and silk-cotton tree.
- borage family — any member of the plant family Boraginaceae, typified by herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees having simple, alternate, hairy leaves and usually blue, five-lobed flowers in a cluster that uncoils as they bloom, including borage, bugloss, and forget-me-not.