16-letter words containing a, c, e, s
- bismarck herring — marinaded herring, served cold
- black nightshade — a poisonous solanaceous plant, Solanum nigrum, a common weed in cultivated land, having small white flowers with backward-curved petals and black berry-like fruits
- black-eyed susan — any of several North American plants of the genus Rudbeckia, esp R. hirta, having flower heads of orange-yellow rays and brown-black centres: family Asteraceae (composites)
- blow one's stack — to lose one's temper; fly into a rage
- bordelaise sauce — a dark sauce made from meat stock, flour, wine, onions, seasonings, etc., served over broiled meat
- boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
- bowman's capsule — a membranous, double-walled capsule surrounding a glomerulus of a nephron.
- bracknell forest — a unitary authority in SE England, in E Berkshire. Pop: 110 100 (2003 est). Area: 109 sq km (42 sq miles)
- bragg scattering — the diffraction phenomenon exhibited by a crystal bombarded with x-rays in such a way that each plane of the crystal lattice acts as a reflector (Bragg reflector)
- braking distance — the distance a vehicle travels from the point at which its brakes are applied to the point at which it comes to a stop
- branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
- break one's back — to overwork or work very hard
- break one's neck — to exert oneself greatly, esp by hurrying, in order to do something
- breakfast cereal — a type of food made from a cereal plant and commonly eaten at breakfast
- breast screening — a radiological or other examination of a woman's breasts to check for signs of cancer
- buckley's chance — no chance at all
- business account — a bank account or type of bank account used for business transactions rather than personal ones
- business machine — a machine for expediting clerical work, as a tabulator or adding machine.
- buttercup squash — a small, usually dark-green squash that is a variety of Cucurbita maxima, having sweet orange flesh.
- cabinet minister — a minister who is a member of the cabinet
- cable television — Cable television is a television system in which signals are sent along wires rather than by radio waves.
- cache on a stick — (architecture) (COAST) Intel Corporation attempt to's standardise the modular L2 cache subsystem in Pentium-based computers. A COAST module should be about 4.35" wide by 1.14" high. According to earlier specifications from Motorola, a module between 4.33" and 4.36" wide, and between 1.12" and 1.16" high is within the COAST standard. Some module vendors, including some major motherboard suppliers, greatly violate the height specification. Another COAST specification violated by many suppliers concerns clock distribution in synchronous modules. The specification requires that the clock tree to each synchronous chip be balanced, i.e. equal length from edge of the connector to individual chips. An unbalanced clock tree increases reflections and noise. For a 256 kilobyte cache module the standard requires the same clock be used for both chips but some vendors use separate clocks to reduce loading on the clock driver and hence increase the clock speed. However, this creates unbalanced loading in other motherboard configurations, such as motherboards with soldered caches in the system.
- cadmium sulphide — an orange or yellow insoluble solid used as a pigment in paints, etc (cadmium yellow). Formula: CdS
- calcium arsenate — a toxic, white powder, Ca3(AsO4)2, used as an insecticide in the form of a spray or dust
- calcium silicate — any of the silicates of calcium: calcium metasilicate, dicalcium silicate, and tricalcium silicate.
- calculate a risk — If you calculate a risk, you decide how likely an event is, whether the insurer should underwrite the risk, and at what cost.
- call in question — a sentence in an interrogative form, addressed to someone in order to get information in reply.
- call one's shots — a discharge of a firearm, bow, etc.
- call to quarters — a bugle call shortly before taps, notifying soldiers to retire to their quarters
- camomile shampoo — a liquid or cream preparation of soap or detergent with camomile extract to wash the hair
- canada bluegrass — a Eurasian grass, Poa compressa, naturalized in North America, having creeping rootstocks and bluish-green leaves.
- canadian english — the English language as spoken in Canada
- canadian soldier — the mayfly.
- canaries current — an ocean current of the North Atlantic flowing southward past Spain and North Africa.
- canine distemper — distemper1 (def 1a).
- cannonball serve — (in tennis) a very fast low serve
- cantankerousness — disagreeable to deal with; contentious; peevish: a cantankerous, argumentative man.
- 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
- capital reserves — the money which a company holds in reserve
- capital sentence — the punishment of death for a crime
- capsizing moment — the moment of an upsetting couple.
- capsule wardrobe — a collection of clothes and accessories that includes only items considered essential
- 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.
- cardiac neurosis — an anxiety reaction characterized by quick fatigue, shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, dizziness, and other cardiac symptoms, but not caused by disease of the heart.
- cardinal numbers — Also called cardinal numeral. any of the numbers that express amount, as one, two, three, etc. (distinguished from ordinal number).