14-letter words containing a, l, s, i
- bildungsromane — a type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist.
- bilious attack — a group of symptoms consisting of headache, abdominal pain, and constipation
- billy no-mates — a person with no friends
- bioregionalism — the conviction that environmental and social policies should be determined by the bioregion rather than economics or politics
- bioregionalist — someone who believes in bioregionalism
- biostatistical — relating to biostatistics
- bipolarisation — the act of bipolarising
- biscuit barrel — an airtight container of circular section equipped with a lid and used for storing biscuits
- bitmap display — (hardware) A computer output device where each pixel displayed on the monitor screen corresponds directly to one or more bits in the computer's video memory. Such a display can be updated extremely rapidly since changing a pixel involves only a single processor write to memory compared with a terminal or VDU connected via a serial line where the speed of the serial line limits the speed at which the display can be changed. Most modern personal computers and workstations have bitmap displays, allowing the efficient use of graphical user interfaces, interactive graphics and a choice of on-screen fonts. Some more expensive systems still delegate graphics operations to dedicated hardware such as graphics accelerators. The bitmap display might be traced back to the earliest days of computing when the Manchester University Mark I(?) computer, developed by F.C. Williams and T. Kilburn shortly after the Second World War. This used a storage tube as its working memory. Phosphor dots were used to store single bits of data which could be read by the user and interpreted as binary numbers.
- black as night — totally dark
- black diamonds — carbonado1 .
- black selenium — an allotropic form of selenium occurring as a black, amorphous, water-insoluble, light-sensitive powder: used chiefly in photoelectric cells.
- black skipjack — a small spotted tuna, Euthynnus yaito, of Indo-Pacific seas
- black squirrel — a fox squirrel or gray squirrel in that color phase in which the fur is black.
- blacktip shark — a widely distributed sand shark, Charcharinus limbatus, having fins that appear to have been dipped in ink, inhabiting shallow waters of warm seas.
- blade-shearing — the shearing of sheep using hand shears
- blanket finish — a finish so close that a blanket would cover all the contestants involved
- blanket stitch — a strong reinforcing stitch for the edges of blankets and other thick material
- blanket-stitch — a basic sewing stitch in which widely spaced, interlocking loops, or purls, are formed, used for cutwork, as a decorative finish for edges, etc.
- blind as a bat — having extremely poor eyesight
- blind staggers — the staggers
- blind stamping — an impression on a book cover without using colour or gold leaf
- blister-packed — presented in a blister pack
- block capitals — Block capitals are simple capital letters that are not decorated in any way.
- block sampling — the selection of a corpus for statistical literary analysis by random selection of a starting point and consideration of the continuous passage following it
- blue mountains — a mountain range in the US, in NE Oregon and SE Washington. Highest peak: Rock Creek Butte, 2773 m (9097 ft)
- bobo-dioulasso — a city in W Burkina Faso. Pop: 396 000 (2005 est)
- bolshoi ballet — a ballet company founded in Moscow in 1776.
- bowling crease — a line marked at the wicket, over which a bowler must not advance fully before delivering the ball
- braddock hills — a town in SE Pennsylvania.
- branchiostegal — of or relating to the operculum covering the gill slits of fish
- brazing solder — an alloy of copper and zinc for joining two metal surfaces by melting the alloy so that it forms a thin layer between the surfaces
- breast implant — an object such as a sachet filled with gel introduced surgically into a woman's breast to enlarge it
- british dollar — any of several coins formerly issued by the British Empire for use in certain territories, as the Straits dollar or the Hong Kong dollar.
- british malaya — a comprehensive term for the former British possessions on the Malay Peninsula and the Malay Archipelago: now part of Malaysia.
- business angel — A business angel is a person who gives financial support to a commercial venture and receives a share of any profits from it, but who does not expect to be involved in its management.
- business class — Business class seating on an aeroplane costs less than first class but more than economy class.
- c with classes — Short-lived predecessor to C++.
- cabalistically — In a cabalistic manner.
- caicos islands — a group of islands in the Caribbean: part of the British dependency of the Turks and Caicos Islands
- calamine brass — an alloy of zinc carbonate and copper, formerly used to imitate gold.
- call screening — a facility that plays an announcement and records messages, enabling the person called to decide whether or not to answer the call
- caller display — a facility which shows the number of an incoming call
- calumniousness — Calumny.
- cambridge lisp — A flavour of Lisp using BCPL. Sources owned by Fitznorman partners.
- camelopardalis — a N constellation between Ursa Major and Cassiopeia; the Giraffe
- canada thistle — a prickly European weed (Cirsium arvense) of the composite family, with heads of purplish flowers and wavy leaves: now common as a fast-spreading, injurious weed throughout the N U.S.
- canary islands — a group of mountainous islands in the Atlantic off the NW coast of Africa, forming an Autonomous Community of Spain. Capital: Las Palmas. Pop: 1 944 700 (2003 est)
- cape peninsula — (in South Africa) the peninsula and the part of the mainland on which Cape Town and most of its suburbs are located
- capital assets — any assets, tangible or intangible, that are held for long-term investment