9-letter words containing a, b, y
- bullwaddy — a N Australian tree, Macropteranthes kekwickii, growing in dense thickets
- buoy boat — a boat used in whaling for holding and towing the whales killed during a hunt.
- buoyantly — in a happy, confident manner
- bush baby — any of a family (Galagidae) of nocturnal prosimian primates of tropical African forests, with a long, bushy tail and large eyes
- busy-wait — (programming) To wait for an event by spinning through a tight loop or timed-delay loop that polls for the event on each pass, as opposed to setting up an interrupt handler and continuing execution on another part of the task. This is a wasteful technique, best avoided on time-sharing systems where a busy-waiting program may hog the processor.
- by a hair — by a very slight margin, only just
- by a head — by the length of the animal's head, as in horse racing
- by a nose — by the length of the animal's nose in horse racing, etc.
- by and by — presently or eventually
- by chance — Something that happens by chance was not planned by anyone.
- by halves — without being thorough or exhaustive
- by nature — essentially or innately
- by way of — You use by way of when you are explaining the purpose of something that you have said or are about to say. For example, if you say something by way of an introduction, you say it as an introduction.
- by-and-by — the future: to meet in the sweet by-and-by.
- byam shaw — Glen Alexander. 1904–81, British actor and theatre director; director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (1953–59)
- bypassers — a road enabling motorists to avoid a city or other heavy traffic points or to drive around an obstruction.
- bypassing — a road enabling motorists to avoid a city or other heavy traffic points or to drive around an obstruction.
- byrd land — a part of Antarctica, east of the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea: claimed for the US by Admiral Richard E. Byrd in 1929, though all claims are suspended under the Antarctic Treaty of 1959
- byrewoman — a woman who works in a byre
- bystander — A bystander is a person who is present when something happens and who sees it but does not take part in it.
- byzantine — Byzantine means related to or connected with the Byzantine Empire.
- byzantium — an ancient Greek city on the Bosporus: founded about 660 bc; rebuilt by Constantine I in 330 ad and called Constantinople; present-day Istanbul
- c battery — the power source for biasing the control-grid electrodes of electron tubes in battery-operated equipment
- cabin boy — a boy who waits on the officers and passengers of a ship
- cabinetry — cabinets collectively
- cableways — Plural form of cableway.
- candy bar — A candy bar is a long, thin, sweet food, usually covered in chocolate.
- capybaras — Plural form of capybara.
- cargo bay — the large central area of the space shuttle orbiter's fuselage in which payloads and their support equipment are carried. Also called payload bay. Compare bay2 (def 2a).
- carryable — to take or support from one place to another; convey; transport: He carried her for a mile in his arms. This elevator cannot carry more than ten people.
- carryback — (in U.S. income-tax law) a special provision allowing part of a net loss or of an unused credit in a given year to be apportioned over one or two preceding years, chiefly in order to ease the tax burden. Compare carry·forward (def 2).
- casco bay — bay on the SW coast of Maine, on which Portland is located
- chalybean — of or relating to the Chalybes, an ancient tribe of central Asia noted for their skill with iron and steel
- chalybite — siderite (def 1).
- chamberys — a city in and the capital of Savoie, in SE France.
- charybdis — a ship-devouring monster in classical mythology, identified with a whirlpool off the north coast of Sicily, lying opposite Scylla on the Italian coast
- clydebank — a town in W Scotland, in West Dunbartonshire on the north bank of the River Clyde. Pop: 29 858 (2001)
- colorably — in a colourable manner
- columbary — a dovecote
- conybeare — William Daniel. 1787–1857, British geologist. He summarized all that was known about rocks at the time in Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales (1822)
- countably — in a countable manner
- cranberry — Cranberries are red berries with a sour taste. They are often used to make a sauce or jelly that you eat with meat.
- crybabies — Plural form of crybaby.
- cryobanks — Plural form of cryobank.
- cryocable — a highly conducting electrical cable cooled with a refrigerant such as liquid nitrogen
- cubically — In a cubic manner.
- cupboardy — (rare) Cupboardlike: for example small, fusty or poorly lit.
- cyan blue — a moderate greenish-blue to bluish-green color.
- cybercafe — A cybercafé is a café where people can pay to use the Internet.
- cybercash — Funds used in electronic financial transactions, especially over the Internet.