19-letter words containing a, e, r, o
- at your convenience — at a time suitable to you
- atherton technology — (company) The comapny that developed the Software BackPlane CASE framework. Their Atherton Tool Integration Services were the basis for the ATIS standard.
- atmospheric braking — a technique of reentry in which the vehicle is maneuvered in the upper atmosphere so as to lose velocity by utilizing drag without overheating.
- attachment disorder — an emotional and behavioral disorder arising from a failure to form a strong bond with one’s primary caregiver in early childhood and affecting one’s social relationships in later childhood and adulthood. See also attachment (def 3a).
- audio response unit — a device that enables a computer to give a spoken response by generating sounds similar to human speech.
- augsburg confession — the statement of beliefs and doctrines of the Lutherans, formulated by Melanchthon and endorsed by the Lutheran princes, which was presented at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 and which became the chief creed of the Lutheran Church.
- auriculoventricular — atrioventricular.
- author's alteration — a correction or change made in typeset copy that is not a correction of an error introduced by the compositor. Abbreviation: AA, A.A., a.a., aa.
- autoerotic asphyxia — asphyxia caused by intentionally strangling oneself while masturbating in order to intensify the orgasm through reduced oxygen flow to the brain.
- ave regina coelorum — a Latin hymn in honor of the Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven.
- awareness programme — a programme designed to increase awareness of something
- baader-meinhof gang — a group of left-wing West German terrorists, active in the 1970s, who were dedicated to the violent overthrow of capitalist society
- bachelor of science — A Bachelor of Science is a first degree in a science subject. In British English, it can also mean a person with that degree. The abbreviation BSc or , BSc is also used.
- backward compatible — backward compatibility
- backward somersault — a somersault performed in a backward direction with the legs leading the rest of the body
- bacteriochlorophyll — a pale blue-gray form of chlorophyll that is unique to the photosynthetic but anaerobic purple bacteria.
- balfour declaration — the statement made by Arthur Balfour in 1917 of British support for the setting up of a national home for the Jews in Palestine, provided that the rights of "existing non-Jewish communities" in Palestine could be safeguarded
- bang for one's buck — value for money
- bank reconciliation — A bank reconciliation is the process of adjusting a bank statement to show transactions that have occurred since the date of issue, or a document showing this.
- bankruptcy petition — an official request for protection under bankruptcy laws, which initiates bankruptcy proceedings
- barbados gooseberry — Also called lemon vine. a treelike cactus, Pereskia aculeata, of tropical America, characterized by broad, elliptical leaves and spiny stems bearing a yellow, edible fruit.
- barometric gradient — pressure gradient
- barometric pressure — atmospheric pressure as indicated by a barometer
- barrack-room lawyer — a person who freely offers opinions, esp in legal matters, that he or she is unqualified to give
- battle-ground state — a state of the U.S. in which the Democratic and Republican candidates both have a good chance of winning and that is considered key to the outcome of a presidential election: the swing states of Ohio and Indiana.
- battles of bull run — two battles fought at Manassas Junction near a stream named Bull Run, during the American Civil War (July, 1861 and August, 1862), in both of which the Federal army was routed by the Confederates
- baudotbetical order — (algorithm) /baw do bet' i k*l/ Sorted into an order where numerics and special characters are intermixed by sorting a 5-bit Baudot code file ignoring the numeric shift and unshift codes.
- be burnt to a crisp — If something is burnt to a crisp, it is completely burnt.
- be one's own master — If you say that you are your own master, you mean that your decisions are not controlled by other people and you are free to do what you want.
- beauty preparations — the cosmetics, creams etc used to improve someone's beauty
- beggar-my-neighbour — a card game in which one player tries to win all the cards of the other player
- behavioral genetics — an interdisciplinary field studying the effects of genetics and hereditary factors on animal and human behavior.
- behavioral medicine — an interdisciplinary field that uses the concepts and techniques of the behavioral sciences to improve physical and emotional health.
- behavioural science — the application of scientific methods to the study of the behaviour of organisms
- below par/under par — If you feel below par or under par, you feel tired and unable to perform as well as you normally do.
- bend over backwards — to make a special effort, esp in order to please
- benefit performance — a theatrical or musical performance in aid of charity
- beta-naphthyl group — See under naphthyl.
- betamethyl acrolein — crotonaldehyde.
- bicarbonate of soda — Bicarbonate of soda is a white powder which is used in baking to make cakes rise, and also as a medicine for your stomach.
- binary large object — (database) (BLOB) A large block of data stored in a database, such as an image or sound file. A BLOB has no structure which can be interpreted by the database management system but is known only by its size and location.
- binomial experiment — an experiment consisting of a fixed number of independent trials each with two possible outcomes, success and failure, and the same probability of success. The probability of a given number of successes is described by a binominal distribution
- bit-paired keyboard — (hardware) (Obsolete, or "bit-shift keyboard") A non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have originated with the Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several years on early computer equipment. The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see EOU), so the only way to generate the character codes from keystrokes was by some physical linkage. The design of the ASR-33 assigned each character key a basic pattern that could be modified by flipping bits if the SHIFT or the CTRL key was pressed. In order to avoid making the thing more of a Rube Goldberg kluge than it already was, the design had to group characters that shared the same basic bit pattern on one key. Looking at the ASCII chart, we find: high low bits bits 0000 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111 1000 1001 010 ! " # $ % & ' ( ) 011 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 This is why the characters !"#$%&'() appear where they do on a Teletype (thankfully, they didn't use shift-0 for space). This was *not* the weirdest variant of the QWERTY layout widely seen, by the way; that prize should probably go to one of several (differing) arrangements on IBM's even clunkier 026 and 029 card punches. When electronic terminals became popular, in the early 1970s, there was no agreement in the industry over how the keyboards should be laid out. Some vendors opted to emulate the Teletype keyboard, while others used the flexibility of electronic circuitry to make their product look like an office typewriter. These alternatives became known as "bit-paired" and "typewriter-paired" keyboards. To a hacker, the bit-paired keyboard seemed far more logical - and because most hackers in those days had never learned to touch-type, there was little pressure from the pioneering users to adapt keyboards to the typewriter standard. The doom of the bit-paired keyboard was the large-scale introduction of the computer terminal into the normal office environment, where out-and-out technophobes were expected to use the equipment. The "typewriter-paired" standard became universal, "bit-paired" hardware was quickly junked or relegated to dusty corners, and both terms passed into disuse.
- black forest gateau — a chocolate sponge cake containing morello cherries and whipped cream, with a topping of chocolate icing
- black warrior river — a river in N central Alabama, flowing SW past Birmingham to the Tombigbee River. 178 miles (286 km) long.
- black-footed ferret — a musteline mammal, Mustela nigripes, of W North America, closely related to the weasels
- blackbelly rosefish — a reddish scorpionfish, Helicolenus dactylopterus, inhabiting the deep waters of the western Atlantic Ocean.
- blackfellow's bread — the edible portion of a species of pore fungus, Polyporus mylittae, that occurs in Australia.
- blackstrap molasses — the molasses remaining after the maximum quantity of sugar has been extracted from the raw material
- blast from the past — You can use a blast from the past as a light-hearted way of referring to something such as an old song or fashion that you hear or notice again, and which reminds you of an earlier time.