12-letter words containing a, e, g, n, i
- ball bearing — Ball bearings are small metal balls placed between the moving parts of a machine to make the parts move smoothly.
- bantamweight — A bantamweight is a boxer who weighs between 51 and 53.5 kilograms, or a wrestler who weighs between 52 and 57 kilograms. A bantamweight is heavier than a flyweight but lighter than a featherweight.
- bargain sale — an event at which goods are sold at low prices, usually to clear old stocks
- barking deer — muntjac.
- base jumping — a sport in which a participant parachutes from any of a variety of fixed objects such as high buildings, cliffs, etc
- base pairing — the hydrogen bonding that occurs between complementary nitrogenous bases in the two polynucleotide chains of a DNA molecule
- base-pairing — the process of binding separate DNA sequences by base pairs.
- basketmaking — The construction of baskets, especially by traditional means.
- batting cage — a screen with three sides and a top, in which batters practice: it keeps missed and fouled pitches within its enclosure
- beachcombing — The action of a beachcomber.
- beacon light — a light signal for shipping
- bead molding — bead (def 12).
- bear-baiting — (formerly) an entertainment in which dogs attacked and enraged a chained bear
- bearing down — to hold up; support: to bear the weight of the roof.
- bearing pile — a foundation pile that supports weight vertically
- bearing rail — a transverse rail carrying a drawer or drawers.
- bearing rein — a rein from the bit to the saddle, designed to keep the horse's head in the desired position
- bearing wall — any of the walls supporting a floor or the roof of a building.
- bearskin rug — the pelt of a bear, used as a rug
- belaying pin — a cylindrical, sometimes tapered pin, usually of metal or wood, that fits into a hole in a pin or fife rail: used for belaying
- beleaguering — to surround with military forces.
- belgian hare — a large red breed of domestic rabbit
- belly-aching — Informal. a pain in the abdomen or bowels.
- benchmarking — In business, benchmarking is a process in which a company compares its products and methods with those of the most successful companies in its field, in order to try to improve its own performance.
- bengal light — a firework or flare that burns with a steady bright blue light, formerly used as a signal
- bengal tiger — a large tiger found in S. Asia
- beta testing — (programming) Evaluation of a pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software (or possibly hardware) by making it available to selected users ("beta testers") before it goes on general distribution. Beta testign aims to discover bugs that only occur in certain environments or under certain patterns of use, while reducing the volume of feedback to a manageable level. The testers benefit by having earlier access to new products, features and fixes. Beta testing may be preceded by "alpha testing", performed in-house by a handful of users (e.g. other developers or friends), who can be expected to give rapid, high quality feedback on design and usability. Once the product is considered to be usable for its intended purpose it then moves on to "beta testing" by a larger, but typically still limited, number of ordinary users, who may include external customers. Some companies such as Google or Degree Jungle stretch the definition, claiming their products are "in beta" for many months by millions of users. The term derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout the industry. "Alpha test" was the unit test, module test or component test phase; "Beta Test" was initial system test. These themselves came from earlier A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a feasibility and manufacturability evaluation done before any commitment to design and development. The B-test was a demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified. The C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed on early samples of the production design.
- bible banger — Bible-thumper.
- bible-banger — Bible-thumper.
- billingsgate — the largest fish market in London, on the N bank of the River Thames; moved to new site at Canary Wharf in 1982 and the former building converted into offices
- binge eating — the practice of eating excessive amounts of food over a short period of time
- bingo caller — the person who shouts out the numbers to bingo players
- biomagnetics — the study of magnetic fields as a form of therapy
- biomagnetism — animal magnetism.
- biscay green — a yellowish green.
- biting stage — the second part of the oral phase of psychosexual development, approximately 8 to18 months of age, during which a child has the urge to bite or chew objects.
- blind flange — a disk for closing the end of a pipe, having holes for bolting it to a flange.
- bloomingdale — a town in NE Illinois.
- bluesnarfing — the practice of using one Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone to steal contact details, ring tones, images, etc from another
- boating lake — a lake in a park where rowing boats can be hired
- boilermaking — metal-working in heavy industry; plating or welding
- boolean ring — a nonempty collection of sets having the properties that the union of two sets of the collection is a set in the collection and that the relative complement of each set with respect to any other set is in the collection.
- boomeranging — a bent or curved piece of tough wood used by the Australian Aborigines as a throwing club, one form of which can be thrown so as to return to the thrower.
- bougainville — an island in the W Pacific, in Papua New Guinea: the largest of the Solomon Islands: unilaterally declared independence in 1990; occupied by government troops in 1992, and granted autonomy in 2001. Chief town: Kieta. Area: 10 049 sq km (3880 sq miles)
- boulangerite — a bluish lead-gray mineral, lead antimony sulfide, Pb 5 Sb 4 S 11 , a minor ore of lead.
- box magazine — a rectangular cartridge holder in a submachine or light machine gun.
- brain damage — If someone suffers brain damage, their brain is damaged by an illness or injury so that they cannot function normally.
- brake lining — a curved thin strip of an asbestos composition riveted to a brake shoe to provide it with a renewable surface
- braunschweig — Brunswick
- breadwinning — a person who earns a livelihood, especially one who also supports dependents.