15-letter words containing a, b, y
- nonbiologically — in a nonbiological way, not in a biological way
- nonflammability — The state or condition of being nonflammable.
- north bay shore — a city on S Long Island, in SE New York.
- not a dickybird — not a word; nothing
- obituary column — the division of a publication reserved for obituaries
- observationally — of, relating to, or founded on observation, especially founded on observation rather than experiment.
- oxyphenbutazone — an anti-inflammatory treatment for arthritis or bursitis
- perissosyllabic — (of a line of verse) containing more syllables than expected for the metre being used
- picture library — A picture library is a collection of photographs that is held by a particular company or organization. Newspapers or publishers can pay to use the photographs in their publications.
- piggyback plant — a plant, Tolmiea menziesii, of the saxifrage family, native to western North America, that produces new plants at the base of its broad, hairy leaves and that is popular as a houseplant.
- polycarboxylate — a salt or ester of a polycarboxylic acid. Polycarboxylate esters are used in certain detergents
- polyphloesboean — noisy
- polysyllabicism — a polysyllabic style
- presbyterianism — church government by presbyters or elders, equal in rank and organized into graded administrative courts.
- presbyterianize — to convert or be converted into Presbyterianism
- primary rainbow — the most commonly seen rainbow, formed by light rays that undergo a single internal reflection in a drop of water.
- private pay bed — (in Britain) a bed in a National Health Service hospital, reserved for private patients who pay a consultant acting privately for treatment and who are charged by the health service for use of hospital facilities
- problematically — of the nature of a problem; doubtful; uncertain; questionable.
- programmability — capable of being programmed.
- psychobiography — a biographical study focusing on psychological factors, as childhood traumas and unconscious motives.
- public lavatory — a public toilet
- publicity agent — A publicity agent is a person whose job is to make sure that a large number of people know about a person, show, or event so that they are successful.
- 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.
- pyrimidine base — any of a number of similar compounds having a basic structure that is derived from pyrimidine, including cytosine, thymine, and uracil, which are constituents of nucleic acids
- pyrometric bead — (in a kiln) a ball of material that indicates by changing color that a certain temperature has been reached.
- quadruple bucky — Obsolete. 1. On an MIT space-cadet keyboard, use of all four of the shifting keys (control, meta, hyper, and super) while typing a character key. 2. On a Stanford or MIT keyboard in raw mode, use of four shift keys while typing a fifth character, where the four shift keys are the control and meta keys on *both* sides of the keyboard. This was very difficult to do! One accepted technique was to press the left-control and left-meta keys with your left hand, the right-control and right-meta keys with your right hand, and the fifth key with your nose. Quadruple-bucky combinations were very seldom used in practice, because when one invented a new command one usually assigned it to some character that was easier to type. If you want to imply that a program has ridiculously many commands or features, you can say something like: "Oh, the command that makes it spin the tapes while whistling Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is quadruple-bucky-cokebottle." See double bucky, bucky bits, cokebottle.
- quantifiability — (uncountable) The condition of being quantifiable.
- questionability — of doubtful propriety, honesty, morality, respectability, etc.: questionable activities; in questionable taste.
- qwerty keyboard — a keyboard having the arrangement of alphabetical and numerical keys found on the traditional typewriter
- radio sono-buoy — a buoy equipped to detect underwater noises and transmit them by radio
- rayside-balfour — a town in S Ontario, in S Canada.
- rechargeability — (of a storage battery) capable of being charged repeatedly. Compare cordless (def 2).
- recognizability — to identify as something or someone previously seen, known, etc.: He had changed so much that one could scarcely recognize him.
- reconcilability — capable of being reconciled.
- refectory table — a long, narrow table having a single stretcher between trestlelike supports at the ends.
- rememberability — the quality of being easily remembered
- remembrance day — (in Canada) November 11, observed as a legal holiday in memory of those who died in World Wars I and II, similar to Veterans Day in the U.S.
- rib-eye (steak) — a beefsteak cut from the rib section, with the bone removed
- right-hand buoy — a distinctive buoy marking the side of a channel regarded as the right, or starboard, side.
- rotary debugger — (Commodore) Essential equipment for those late-night or early-morning debugging sessions. Mainly used as sustenance for the hacker. Comes in many decorator colours, such as Sausage, Pepperoni, and Garbage.
- roundaboutility — roundaboutness
- rubaiyat stanza — a quatrain patterned after those in The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, of iambic pentameter and rhyming aaba.
- ruby grapefruit — a grapefruit with red flesh
- rusty blackbird — a North American blackbird, Euphagus carolinus, the male of which has plumage that is uniformly bluish-black in the spring and rusty-edged in the fall.
- sabbatical year — Also called sabbatical leave. (in a school, college, university, etc.) a year, usually every seventh, of release from normal teaching duties granted to a professor, as for study or travel.
- salisbury plain — a plateau in S England, N of Salisbury: the site of Stonehenge.
- salisbury steak — ground beef, sometimes mixed with other foods, shaped like a hamburger patty and broiled or fried, often garnished or served with a sauce.
- say one's beads — to pray with a rosary
- set by the ears — to cause disagreement or commotion
- sibling rivalry — the feeling of competitiveness that often exists between brothers and sisters