13-letter words containing a, b, y
- 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.
- booby-trapped — (of a building, vehicle, etc) planted with a booby trap
- 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.
- bouncy castle — A bouncy castle is a large object filled with air, often in the shape of a castle, which children play on at a fairground or other outdoor event.
- boundary line — a line marking one of the edges of a playing area
- boundary peak — a peak in SW Nevada, in the White Mountains, near the California border: highest elevation in Nevada. 13,143 feet (4006 meters).
- boundary scan — The use of scan registers to capture state from device input and output pins. IEEE Standard 1149.1-1990 describes the international standard implementation (sometimes called JTAG after the Joint Test Action Group which began the standardisation work).
- bowling alley — A bowling alley is a building which contains several tracks for bowling.
- boycott apple — (legal) Some time before 1989, Apple Computer, Inc. started a lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, claiming they had breeched Apple's copyright on the look and feel of the Macintosh user interface. In December 1989, Xerox failed to sue Apple Computer, claiming that the software for Apple's Lisa computer and Macintosh Finder, both copyrighted in 1987, were derived from two Xerox programs: Smalltalk, developed in the mid-1970s and Star, copyrighted in 1981. Apple wanted to stop people from writing any program that worked even vaguely like a Macintosh. If such look and feel lawsuits succeed they could put an end to free software that could substitute for commercial software. In the weeks after the suit was filed, Usenet reverberated with condemnation for Apple. GNU supporters Richard Stallman, John Gilmore and Paul Rubin decided to take action against Apple. Apple's reputation as a force for progress came from having made better computers; but The League for Programming Freedom believed that Apple wanted to make all non-Apple computers worse. They therefore campaigned to discourage people from using Apple products or working for Apple or any other company threatening similar obstructionist tactics (e.g. Lotus and Xerox). Because of this boycott the Free Software Foundation for a long time didn't support Macintosh Unix in their software. In 1995, the LPF and the FSF decided to end the boycott.
- boynton beach — a city in SE Florida.
- boys' brigade — (in Britain) an organization for boys, founded in 1883, with the aim of promoting discipline and self-respect
- brachycranial — brachycephalic
- brachydactyly — abnormal shortness of the fingers and toes.
- brachypterous — having very short or incompletely developed wings
- brachytherapy — a form of radiotherapy in which sealed sources of radioactive material are inserted temporarily into body cavities or directly into tumours
- brahminy kite — a common kite, Haliastur indus, of southern Asia and the southwest Pacific islands, having reddish-brown plumage with a white head and breast.
- brain surgery — operation on the brain
- bramble jelly — a jam made from blackberries
- branch rickey — (Wesley) Branch, 1881–1965, U.S. baseball executive.
- brand loyalty — the tendency of consumers to continue buying a particular brand instead of trying a different one
- brandy butter — butter and sugar creamed together with brandy and served with Christmas pudding, etc
- brass foundry — a foundry that makes things from brass
- brazing alloy — a solder fusing at temperatures above 1200°F (650°C).
- breathability — fitness to be breathed
- bridge player — a person who plays the game of bridge
- brigham young — Andrew (Jackson, Jr.) born 1932, U.S. clergyman, civil-rights leader, politician, and diplomat: mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, 1981–89.
- brittany blue — a medium greenish blue.
- broadly based — Something that is broadly based involves many different kinds of things or people.
- bronchography — radiography of the bronchial tubes after the introduction of a radiopaque medium into the bronchi
- brook lamprey — a jawless fish, Lampetra planeri, native to the European part of the Atlantic Ocean and the northwest Mediterranean
- brooklyn park — city in SE Minn.: suburb of Minneapolis: pop. 67,000
- buckeye state — Ohio (used as a nickname).
- buffalo berry — a shrub (genus Shepherdia) of the oleaster family, native to W North America, with silvery leaves
- bully-ragging — to bully; harass: to bullyrag fraternity plebs.
- buoyancy tank — an enclosed air-filled section of a boat, ship or hovercraft designed to keep it afloat and prevent it from sinking
- buoyant force — the law that a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force (buoyant force) equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body.
- burglariously — in the manner of a burglar or buglary
- butler's tray — a tray resting on or attached to an X-shaped, often folding stand, on which are kept drink bottles and glasses
- butterfly pea — any of several leguminous plants of the genus Clitoria, as C. mariana, of North America, having pale-blue flowers.
- butyl acetate — a colourless liquid with a fruity odour, existing in four isomeric forms. Three of the isomers are important solvents for cellulose lacquers. Formula: CH3COOC4H9
- butyl alcohol — any of four isomeric alcohols, C4H9OH, obtained from petroleum products: used as solvents and in organic synthesis
- butyraldehyde — a colourless flammable pungent liquid used in the manufacture of resins. Formula: CH3(CH2)2CHO
- buzzard's bay — an inlet of the Atlantic, in SE Massachusetts. 30 miles (48 km) long.
- by (all) odds — by far; unquestionably
- by a long way — You can use by a long way to emphasize that something is, for example, much better, worse, or bigger than any other thing of that kind.
- by any chance — You can use by any chance when you are asking questions in order to find out whether something that you think might be true is actually true.
- by contraries — contrary to what is expected
- by its nature — If you say that something has a particular characteristic by its nature or by its very nature, you mean that things of that type always have that characteristic.
- by reputation — If you know someone by reputation, you have never met them but you have heard of their reputation.
- by-your-leave — a request for permission (esp in the phrase without so much as a by-your-leave)