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16-letter words containing a, c, e, r, b

  • bridging finance — money borrowed temporarily to cover the period before a particular event occurs, for example, until a house purchaser receives money under a mortgage
  • broadloom carpet — any carpet woven on a wide loom and not having seams, especially one wider than 54 inches (137 cm).
  • bronchopneumonia — inflammation of the lungs, originating in the bronchioles
  • buoyancy chamber — an enclosed section of a canoe, float, ship or other object that contains air, foam, or another buoyant substance in order to help maintain buoyancy
  • bureau de change — a place where foreign currencies can be exchanged
  • bureaucratically — of, relating to, or characteristic of a bureaucrat or a bureaucracy; arbitrary and routine.
  • bury the hatchet — to cease hostilities and become reconciled
  • buttercup family — the plant family Ranunculaceae, typified by mostly herbaceous plants having usually alternate leaves, multistaminate flowers sometimes lacking petals but with colorful sepals, and including the anemone, buttercup, clematis, columbine, delphinium, and monkshood.
  • buttercup squash — a small, usually dark-green squash that is a variety of Cucurbita maxima, having sweet orange flesh.
  • byzantine church — Orthodox Church (def 1).
  • cabbage root fly — a dipterous fly, Erioischia brassicae, whose larvae feed on the roots and stems of cabbages and other brassicas: family Muscidae (houseflies, etc)
  • cabbage-tree hat — a broad-brimmed hat made from cabbage-tree leaves.
  • cabinet minister — a minister who is a member of the cabinet
  • caducibranchiate — (of many amphibians, such as frogs) having gills during one stage of the life cycle only
  • camborne-redruth — a former (until 1974) urban district in SW England, in Cornwall: formed in 1934 by the amalgamation of the neighbouring towns of Camborne and Redruth. Pop: 39 936 (2001)
  • canada bluegrass — a Eurasian grass, Poa compressa, naturalized in North America, having creeping rootstocks and bluish-green leaves.
  • cannonball serve — (in tennis) a very fast low serve
  • canterbury bells — a cultivated bellflower (Campanula medium) with white, pink, or blue cuplike flowers
  • canterbury tales — an unfinished literary work by Chaucer, largely in verse, consisting of stories told by pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury
  • cape may warbler — a North American wood warbler, Dendroica tigrina, olive-green striped with black on the wings and back and yellow striped with black on the breast.
  • capsule wardrobe — a collection of clothes and accessories that includes only items considered essential
  • captive breeding — Captive breeding is the breeding of wild animals in places such as zoos, especially animals which have become rare in the wild.
  • carbon bisulfide — carbon disulfide
  • carbon disulfide — a heavy, volatile, colorless liquid, CS2, highly flammable and poisonous, used as a solvent, insecticide, etc.
  • carbonless paper — a sheet of paper impregnated with dye which transfers writing or typing onto the copying surface below without the necessity for carbon pigment
  • carboxylesterase — (enzyme) Any enzyme that catalyses the hydrolysis of a carboxylic ester.
  • carboxypeptidase — any of several digestive enzymes that catalyze the removal of an amino acid from the end of a peptide chain having a free carbonyl group.
  • cardinal numbers — Also called cardinal numeral. any of the numbers that express amount, as one, two, three, etc. (distinguished from ordinal number).
  • cassia-bark tree — a lauraceous tree, Cinnamomum cassia, of eastern Asia.
  • cathode ray tube — (hardware)   (CRT) An electrical device for displaying images by exciting phosphor dots with a scanned electron beam. CRTs are found in computer VDUs and monitors, televisions and oscilloscopes. The first commercially practical CRT was perfected on 29 January 1901 by Allen B DuMont. A large glass envelope containing a negative electrode (the cathode) emits electrons (formerly called "cathode rays") when heated, as in a vacuum tube. The electrons are accelerated across a large voltage gradient toward the flat surface of the tube (the screen) which is covered with phosphor. When an electron strikes the phosphor, light is emitted. The electron beam is deflected by electromagnetic coils around the outside of the tube so that it scans across the screen, usually in horizontal stripes. This scan pattern is known as a raster. By controlling the current in the beam, the brightness at any particular point (roughly a "pixel") can be varied. Different phosphors have different "persistence" - the length of time for which they glow after being struck by electrons. If the scanning is done fast enough, the eye sees a steady image, due to both the persistence of the phospor and of the eye itself. CRTs also differ in their dot pitch, which determines their spatial resolution, and in whether they use interlace or not.
  • cathode-ray tube — A cathode-ray tube is a device in televisions and computer terminals which sends an image onto the screen.
  • cedar of lebanon — a cedar, Cedrus libani, of SW Asia with level spreading branches and fragrant wood
  • celebrity status — the prominence of film star, footballer, musician etc who is constantly photographed and written about in tabloids and magazines
  • cepheid variable — any of a class of variable stars with regular cycles of variations in luminosity (most ranging from three to fifty days). There is a relationship between the periods of variation and the absolute magnitudes, which is used for measuring the distance of such stars
  • cerulean warbler — a North American wood warbler, Dendroica cerulea, the male of which is blue above and white below.
  • chamber of trade — a national organization representing local chambers of commerce
  • chargeable asset — any asset that can give rise to assessment for capital gains tax on its disposal. Exempt assets include principal private residences, cars, investments held in a personal equity plan, and government securities
  • charitable trust — a trust set up for the benefit of a charity that complies with the regulations of the Charity Commissioners to enable it to be exempt from paying income tax
  • chernobyl packet — (networking)   /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ A network packet that induces a broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, named in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and destination Ethernet address and IP address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare Christmas tree packet.
  • chiclet keyboard — (hardware, abuse)   A keyboard with a small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like pieces of Chiclets chewing gum. Used especially to describe the original IBM PCjr keyboard. Vendors unanimously liked these because they were cheap, and a lot of early portable and laptop computers were launched with them. Customers rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and chiclets are not often seen on anything larger than a digital watch any more.
  • chilean firebush — South American shrub with scarlet flowers
  • christmas beetle — any of various greenish-gold Australian scarab beetles of the genus Anoplognathus, which are common in summer
  • chromatic number — (mathematics)   The smallest number of colours necessary to colour the nodes of a graph so that no two adjacent nodes have the same colour. See also: four colour map theorem.
  • chuvash republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga valley: generally low-lying with undulating plains and large areas of forest. Capital: Cheboksary. Pop: 1 313 900 (2002). Area: 18 300 sq km (7064 sq miles)
  • cigarette beetle — a small cylindrical beetle, Lasioderma serricorne, that is a pest, especially of dried tobacco.
  • city of aberdeen — a council area in NE Scotland, established in 1996. Pop: 206 600 (2003 est). Area: 186 sq km (72 sq miles)
  • clarified butter — butter with the water and milk solids removed, used for cooking at high temperatures without burning
  • cluster variable — RR Lyrae star.
  • cobra de capello — a cobra, Naja tripudians, that has ringlike markings on the body and exists in many varieties in S and SE Asia
  • come/bring alive — If a story or description comes alive, it becomes interesting, lively, or realistic. If someone or something brings it alive, they make it seem more interesting, lively, or realistic.
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