13-letter words containing a, c, d
- aridification — the process by which a humid region becomes increasingly dry, as by climatic change or human interference with the ecology.
- armistice day — the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I, on Nov 11, 1918, now kept on Remembrance Sunday
- armored cable — an electric cable having a metal protective covering
- armored scale — any of a family (Diaspididae) of scale insects characterized by a hard, waxy secretion that covers the body: many armored scales are serious pests of trees and shrubs
- arsenous acid — a toxic white powder, As2O3, used to make other arsenic compounds, insecticides, and preservatives; white arsenic
- arthroconidia — Plural form of arthroconidium.
- arundinaceous — resembling a reed
- ascension day — the 40th day after Easter, when the Ascension of Christ into heaven is celebrated
- ascensiontide — the ten days from Ascension Day to the day before Whit Sunday
- ascorbic acid — Ascorbic acid is another name for vitamin C.
- aspartic acid — nonessential amino acid that is a component of proteins and acts as a neurotransmitter
- ass backwards — in an order or way reverse from the usual: You've sewn the sleeve on assbackwards.
- ass-backwards — of or in a way that is particularly contrary to the usual way, confusing, etc.
- assembly code — assembly language
- astrodynamics — the study of the motion of natural and artificial bodies in space
- at a discount — below the regular price
- audaciousness — Risky or daring behaviour.
- audience room — a room for holding formal interviews or hearings.
- audiocassette — a cassette containing audiotape
- audiographics — audiographic teleconferencing
- authenticated — Prove or show (something, esp. a claim or an artistic work) to be true or genuine.
- auto-destruct — self-destruct.
- autodidactism — Alternative form of autodidacticism.
- autoschediasm — anything done with little forethought or preparation
- autoschediaze — to do or act with little forethought or preparation
- ayurvedically — As a practitioner of Ayurveda; in an Ayurvedic way.
- baal merodach — Marduk.
- back and fill — to manoeuvre the sails by alternately filling and emptying them of wind to navigate in a narrow place
- back-end load — the final charges of commission and expenses made by an investment trust, insurance policy, etc, when the investor is paid out
- backdoor play — an offensive tactic whereby a player breaks away from a defender to receive a pass near the baseline in order to make a quick layup.
- backgrounders — Plural form of backgrounder.
- backgrounding — Present participle of background.
- backpedalling — to retard the forward motion by pressing backward on the pedal, especially of a bicycle with coaster brakes.
- backward roll — a gymnastic roll that is performed with the feet going first and the rest of the body and the head following
- backwardation — the difference between the spot price for a commodity, including rent and interest, and the forward price
- bacteriocidal — Alternative spelling of bactericidal.
- badminton cup — a long refreshing drink of claret with soda water and sugar
- balanced diet — a diet consisting of the proper quantities and proportions of foods needed to maintain health or growth.
- balanced fund — a mutual fund made up of both stocks and bonds
- balanced line — a transmission line in which the oppositely directed components are symmetrical with respect to each other and to the ground.
- balanced step — any of a series of staircase winders so planned that they are nearly as wide at the inside of the stair as the adjacent fliers.
- balanced tree — (algorithm) An optimisation of a tree which aims to keep equal numbers of items on each subtree of each node so as to minimise the maximum path from the root to any leaf node. As items are inserted and deleted, the tree is restructured to keep the nodes balanced and the search paths uniform. Such an algorithm is appropriate where the overheads of the reorganisation on update are outweighed by the benefits of faster search. A B-tree is a kind of balanced tree that can have more than two subtrees at each node (i.e. one that is not restricted to being a binary tree).
- ballet dancer — a man or woman who takes part in ballet dancing, usually professionally
- baltic shield — the wide area of ancient rock in Scandinavia
- band spectrum — a spectrum consisting of a number of bands of closely spaced lines that are associated with emission or absorption of radiation by molecules
- bandicoot rat — any of three burrowing rats of the genera Bandicota and Nesokia, of S and SE Asia: family Muridae
- bank discount — interest on a loan deducted from the principal amount when the loan is made and based on the loan's face value
- barefacedness — The state or quality of being barefaced.
- barnacle code — (programming, humour) Any piece of code (usually a static method) that has been appended to a class where it doesn't logically belong, due to a lack of anywhere else to put it.
- basel accords — the three sets of rules, Basel I, Basel II, and Basel III, for regulating the banking industry, drawn up by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision