15-letter words containing a, d, r, s
- armaments depot — a store for armaments
- arrest judgment — to stay proceedings after a verdict, on the grounds of error or possible error
- arrondissements — Plural form of arrondissement.
- arts and crafts — decorative handicraft and design, esp that of the Arts and Crafts movement, in late nineteenth-century Britain, which sought to revive medieval craftsmanship
- ascribed status — the social position assigned to a person on the basis of kinship, ethnic group, sex, etc.
- assured tenancy — an agreement between a government-approved body such as a housing association and a tenant for occupation of a newly-built house or flat at an agreed market rent, under which the tenant has security of tenure
- astrodynamicist — a person who studies astrodynamics
- at death's door — If you say that someone is at death's door, you mean they are very ill indeed and likely to die.
- attitude survey — a survey of the opinions held by a particular group of people
- auf wiedersehen — goodbye, until we see each other again
- autodestructive — likely to cause one's own destruction
- autoradiographs — Plural form of autoradiograph.
- azobisformamide — (chemistry) azodicarbonamide.
- backseat driver — If you refer to a passenger in a car as a backseat driver, they annoy you because they constantly give you advice about how to drive.
- bad housekeeper — a person who is not an efficient and thrifty domestic manager
- bandpass filter — A bandpass filter is a filter designed to pass all frequencies within a band of frequencies.
- bandstop filter — A bandstop filter is a filter designed to eliminate all frequencies within a band of frequencies.
- barley sandwich — a drink of beer, esp at lunch time
- barn-door skate — an Atlantic skate, Raja laevis, that grows to a length of 4 feet (1.2 meters) or more.
- basic anhydride — a compound formed by removing water from a more complex compound: an oxide of a nonmetal (acid anhydride) or a metal (basic anhydride) that forms an acid or a base, respectively, when united with water.
- basic autocoder — Early system on IBM 7070. Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959).
- basse-normandie — a region of NW France, on the English Channel: consists of the Cherbourg peninsula in the west rising to the Normandy hills in the east; mainly agricultural
- bathurst island — an island off the coast of N Nunavut, Canada, in the Arctic Archipelago: present south of the North Magnetic Pole nearby. 7609 sq. mi. (19,707 sq. km).
- beast of burden — A beast of burden is an animal such as an ox or a donkey that is used for carrying or pulling things.
- belt-and-braces — providing double security, in case one security measure should fail
- ben day process — a method of adding texture, shading, or detail to line drawings by overlaying a transparent sheet of dots or any other pattern during platemaking
- beside the mark — not striking the point aimed at
- big sandy creek — a river in central Colorado, flowing NE and SE to the Arkansas River near Lamar: site of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre. 200 miles (322 km) long.
- bird of passage — If you refer to someone as a bird of passage, you mean that they are staying in a place for a short time before going to another place.
- blasting powder — a form of gunpowder made with sodium nitrate instead of saltpeter, used chiefly for blasting rock, ore, etc.
- blue wood aster — a composite plant, Aster cordifolius, of North America, having heart-shaped leaves and pale-blue flowers.
- blue-eyed grass — any of various mainly North American iridaceous marsh plants of the genus Sisyrinchium that have grasslike leaves and small flat starlike blue flowers
- boarding school — A boarding school is a school which some or all of the pupils live in during the school term. Compare day school.
- borderline case — a person or thing that is not clearly classifiable as something
- borrower's card — a card issued by a library to individuals or organizations entitling them or their representatives to borrow materials.
- braille display — (hardware) (Or "refreshable braille display", "refreshable display") An electromechanical device that renders braille with tiny, independently controlled pins used to represent the state of dots in braille cells. Each pin, in its "on" state, raises above the top of its hole in the screen; in its "off" state, it drops below the top of its hole. Older systems used tiny solenoids to control the state of the pins; modern systems are piezoelectric. Typical dimensions of a braille display are 1 line of 40 cells, each cell of two-by-eight dots.
- brand awareness — the extent to which consumers are aware of a particular product or service
- brand extension — the practice of using a well-known brand name to promote new products or services in unrelated fields
- breeding season — the time of year during which animals breed
- brights-disease — a disease characterized by albuminuria and heightened blood pressure.
- brill's disease — a form of epidemic typhus fever in which the disease recurs years after the original infection
- broadcast storm — (networking) A broadcast on a network that causes multiple hosts to respond by broadcasting themselves, causing the storm to grow exponentially in severity. See network meltdown.
- bronze diabetes — hemochromatosis.
- brown-and-serve — requiring only a brief period of browning, as in an oven, before being ready to serve: brown-and-serve rolls.
- brunner's gland — any of the glands in the submucosal layer of the duodenum, secreting an alkaline fluid into the small intestine.
- brush discharge — a slightly luminous electrical discharge between points of high charge density when the charge density is insufficient to cause a spark or around sharp points on a highly charged conductor because of ionization of air molecules in their vicinity
- buffalo soldier — (formerly, especially among American Indians) a black soldier.
- building trades — the trades and professions concerned with the creation and finishing of buildings, such as carpenters, plasterers, masons, electricians, etc.
- bullnose header — bull header (def 1).
- bullnose-header — Also called bullnose header. a brick having one of the edges across its width rounded for laying as a header in a sill or the like.