13-letter words containing a, n, b, r
- beetlebrained — stupid
- beleaguerment — a blockade or siege
- bench warrant — a warrant issued by a judge or court directing that an offender be apprehended
- beneficiary's — a person or group that receives benefits, profits, or advantages.
- benefit fraud — the illegal activity of claiming benefit payments which a person is not entitled to
- benito juarez — Benito (Pablo) [be-nee-taw pah-vlaw] /bɛˈni tɔ ˈpɑ vlɔ/ (Show IPA), 1806–72, president of Mexico 1857–72.
- benton harbor — a city in SW Michigan, on Lake Michigan.
- berchtesgaden — a town in Germany, in SE Bavaria: site of the fortified mountain retreat of Adolf Hitler. Pop: 7667 (2003 est)
- bergamot mint — an aromatic herb, Mentha piperita citrata, having a lemonlike odor when crushed.
- bering strait — a strait between Alaska and Russia, connecting the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean
- berkeleianism — the philosophical system of George Berkeley, holding that objects exist only when perceived, that God's perception sustains the universe, and that there is no independent substratum or substance in which these perceptions inhere
- bermuda onion — a large white or yellow onion with a mild flavor, grown in Texas, California, etc.
- beta carotene — a yellowish form of carotene: a dietary deficiency of this is associated with a greater risk of certain cancers
- beta-carotene — the most abundant of various isomers of carotene, C 40 H 56 , that can be converted by the body to vitamin A.
- bethnal green — a former borough of London, England, N of the Thames.
- beyond recall — If something is beyond recall, it is no longer possible to remember how it was or to bring it back to its original condition.
- bharat natyam — a form of Indian classical ballet
- bharata natya — a traditional south Indian dance style, formerly performed only by devadasis.
- bib and brace — a work garment consisting of trousers and an upper front part supported by straps over the shoulders
- bible reading — a passage from the Bible, esp one read in a service
- bidirectional — (of a printhead) capable of printing from left to right and from right to left
- big brown bat — any of several small to medium-sized common bats of the genera Myotis and Eptesicus, found worldwide in caves, trees, and buildings, including M. lucifugus (little brown bat) and E. fuscus (big brown bat) a widespread North American species.
- bildungsroman — a novel concerned with a person's formative years and development
- bilinear form — a function or functional of two variables that is linear with respect to each variable when the other variable is held fixed.
- binary number — a number expressed in binary notation, as 1101.101 = 1 × 23 + 1 × 22 + 0 × 21 + 1 × 20 + 1 × 2–1 + 0 × 2–2 + 1 × 2–3 = 13 5⁄8
- binary prefix — (unit) (Or "IEC prefix") A prefix used with a unit of data to mean multiplication by a power of 1024. Binary prefixes are most often used with "byte" (e.g. "kilobyte") but also with bit (e.g. "megabit"). For example, the term kilobyte has historically been used to mean 1024 bytes, and megabyte to mean 1,048,576 bytes. The multipliers 1024 and 1,048,576 are powers of 1024, which is itself a power of two (1024 = 2^10). It is this factor of two that gives the name "binary prefix". This is in contrast to a decimal prefix denoting a power of 1000, which is itself a power of ten (1000 = 10^3). Decimal prefixes are used in science and engineering and are specified in widely adopted SI standards. Note that the actual prefix - kilo or mega - is the same, it is the interpretation that differs. The difference between the two interpretations increases with each multiplication, so while 1000 and 1024 differ by only 2.4%, 1000^6 and 1024^6 differ by 15%. The 1024-based interpretation of prefixes is often still used informally and especially when discussing the storage capacity of random-access memory. This has lead to storage device manufacturers being accused of false marketing for using the decimal interpretation where customers might assume the larger, historical, binary interpretation. In an attempt to clarify the distinction, in 1998 the IEC specified that kilobyte, megabyte, etc. should only be used for powers of 1000 (following SI). They specified new prefixes for powers of 1024 containing "bi" for "binary": kibibyte, mebibyte, etc.; an idea originally propsed by IUPAC. IEC also specified new abbreviations Ki, Mi, etc. for the new prefixes. Many other standards bodies such as NIST, IEEE and BIPM support this proposal but as of 2013 its use is rare in non-technical circles. Specific units of IEC 60027-2 A.2 and ISO/IEC 80000
- binary pulsar — a pulsar in a binary system.
- binary search — (algorithm) A search algorithm which repeatedly divides an ordered search space in half according to how the required (key) value compares with the middle element. The following pseudo-C routine performs a binary search return the index of the element of vector "thing[first..last]" equal to "target": if (target < thing[first] || target > thing[last]) return NOT_FOUND; while (first < last) { mid = (first+last)/2; /* truncate to integer */ if (target == thing[mid]) return mid; if (target < thing[mid]) last = mid-1; else first = mid+1; } if (target == thing[last]) return last; return NOT_FOUND; (2003-01-14)
- binary system — a system involving only two elements, as 0 and 1 or yes and no.
- binary weapon — a chemical weapon consisting of a projectile containing two substances separately that mix to produce a lethal agent when the projectile is fired
- bipartisanism — the quality of being bipartisan
- bird-watching — Bird-watching is the activity of watching and studying wild birds in their natural surroundings.
- birectangular — having two right angles.
- birth parents — a child's biological parents, regardless of whether they subsequently bring up the child
- birthing ball — a large soft rubber ball used by women during childbirth to give support and to aid pain relief
- bitter almond — a variety of almond whose bitter seeds yield hydrocyanic acid upon hydrolysis
- bitter orange — a globose, reddish-yellow, bitter or sweet, edible citrus fruit.
- black country — a district in the English Midlands, around Birmingham: so called from the soot and grime produced by the many local industries.
- black currant — the small, round, blackish, edible fruit of a widely cultivated shrub, Ribes nigrum, of the saxifrage family.
- black panther — (in the US) a member of a militant Black political party (1965–82) founded to end the political dominance of White people
- black russian — a drink made from one part coffee liqueur and two parts vodka, served over ice.
- bladder senna — a Eurasian leguminous plant, Colutea arborescens, with yellow and red flowers and membranous inflated pods
- blamestorming — a discussion or meeting for the purpose of assigning blame.
- blanketflower — a hardy flowering plant, Gaillardia aristata, that grows in the US
- blarney stone — a stone in Blarney Castle, in the SW Republic of Ireland, said to endow whoever kisses it with the gift of the gab and skill in flattery
- blast furnace — A blast furnace is a large structure in which iron ore is heated under pressure so that it melts and the pure iron metal separates out and can be collected.
- blow an eprom — /bloh *n ee'prom/ (Or "blast", "burn") To program a read-only memory, e.g. for use with an embedded system. This term arose because the programming process for the Programmable Read-Only Memory (PROM) that preceded present-day Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM) involved intentionally blowing tiny electrical fuses on the chip. The usage lives on (it's too vivid and expressive to discard) even though the write process on EPROMs is nondestructive.
- board meeting — a meeting of the board of a company or other organization
- boarding card — A boarding card is a card which a passenger must have when boarding a plane or a boat.
- boarding fees — fees paid for boarding at a school