13-letter words containing a, l, b, c
- associability — the condition of or the capacity to be associable or linked or related in thinking
- attachability — The quality of being attachable.
- auction block — Also called block. a platform from which an auctioneer sells: the old courthouse where slaves were sold from the auction block.
- baal merodach — Marduk.
- baccalaureate — The baccalaureate is an examination taken by students at the age of eighteen in France and some other countries.
- bachelor flat — a flat lived in, or intended for a bachelor
- bachelor girl — a young unmarried woman, esp one who is self-supporting
- bachelor seal — a young male seal, esp a fur seal, that has not yet mated
- bachelorettes — Plural form of bachelorette.
- bacillophobia — The fear of microbes. Also known as germaphobia.
- back and fill — to manoeuvre the sails by alternately filling and emptying them of wind to navigate in a narrow place
- back clipping — a word formed by omitting the last part of the form from which it is derived.
- back walkover — Racing. a walking or trotting over the course by a contestant who is the only starter.
- back-end load — the final charges of commission and expenses made by an investment trust, insurance policy, etc, when the investor is paid out
- back-slapping — Back-slapping is noisy, cheerful behaviour which people use in order to show affection or appreciation to each other.
- back-up light — a light on the rear of a motor vehicle to warn others that the vehicle is being reversed
- backdoor play — an offensive tactic whereby a player breaks away from a defender to receive a pass near the baseline in order to make a quick layup.
- backing light — Also called backing striplight, backing strip. Theater. a striplight providing diffused illumination for the background of a stage set.
- backpedalling — to retard the forward motion by pressing backward on the pedal, especially of a bicycle with coaster brakes.
- backward roll — a gymnastic roll that is performed with the feet going first and the rest of the body and the head following
- bacteriocidal — Alternative spelling of bactericidal.
- bacteriologic — a branch of microbiology dealing with the identification, study, and cultivation of bacteria and with their applications in medicine, agriculture, industry, and biotechnology.
- bacteriolysin — an antibody which, when it combines with bacterial cells, causes lysis of those cells, thus destroying them
- bacteriolysis — the destruction or disintegration of bacteria
- bacteriolytic — disintegration or dissolution of bacteria.
- baggage claim — At an airport, the baggage claim is the area where you collect your baggage at the end of your trip.
- balance shaft — a shaft in a vehicle engine that is designed to reduce the amount of vibration from other moving parts as it rotates
- balance sheet — A balance sheet is a written statement of the amount of money and property that a company or person has, including amounts of money that are owed or are owing. Balance sheet is also used to refer to the general financial state of a company.
- balance staff — a pivoted axle or shaft on which the balance is mounted.
- balance wheel — a wheel oscillating against the hairspring of a timepiece, thereby regulating its beat
- balanced diet — a diet consisting of the proper quantities and proportions of foods needed to maintain health or growth.
- balanced fund — a mutual fund made up of both stocks and bonds
- balanced line — a transmission line in which the oppositely directed components are symmetrical with respect to each other and to the ground.
- balanced step — any of a series of staircase winders so planned that they are nearly as wide at the inside of the stair as the adjacent fliers.
- balanced tree — (algorithm) An optimisation of a tree which aims to keep equal numbers of items on each subtree of each node so as to minimise the maximum path from the root to any leaf node. As items are inserted and deleted, the tree is restructured to keep the nodes balanced and the search paths uniform. Such an algorithm is appropriate where the overheads of the reorganisation on update are outweighed by the benefits of faster search. A B-tree is a kind of balanced tree that can have more than two subtrees at each node (i.e. one that is not restricted to being a binary tree).
- balancing act — If you perform a balancing act, you try to deal successfully with two or more people, groups, or situations that are in opposition to each other.
- balch springs — a town in NE Texas.
- ball the jack — a spherical or approximately spherical body or shape; sphere: He rolled the piece of paper into a ball.
- ballet dancer — a man or woman who takes part in ballet dancing, usually professionally
- ballet school — a school where professional ballet dancers are trained
- ballistically — of or relating to ballistics.
- balloon chuck — a lathe chuck having the form of a hollow hemisphere, for enclosing and holding small parts, as balance staffs of watches, so that only their ends are exposed.
- balloon clock — a bracket clock of the late 18th century, having a round dial on a short case with concave sides resting on bracket feet.
- balsam capivi — copaiba.
- balsam spruce — either of two North American coniferous trees of the genus Picea, P. pungens (the blue spruce) or P. engelmanni
- baltic shield — the wide area of ancient rock in Scandinavia
- baltic states — the republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which became constituent republics of the former Soviet Union in 1940, regaining their independence in 1991
- barcoo salute — a movement of the hand to brush flies away from the face
- baritone clef — an F clef locating F below middle C on the third line of the staff.
- barnacle code — (programming, humour) Any piece of code (usually a static method) that has been appended to a class where it doesn't logically belong, due to a lack of anywhere else to put it.