14-letter words containing a, n, d, e
- back-pedalling — a retreat from or a retraction of a previously held view
- backhandedness — The quality of being backhanded; the use of indirect tactics.
- backside-front — backend-to.
- badger baiting — an illegal sport in which dogs are encouraged to draw a badger out of its burrow and attack it
- balance bridge — a bascule bridge
- balanced valve — a valve designed so that pressure-induced forces from the fluid being controlled oppose one another so that resistance to opening and closing the valve is negligible.
- ballon d'essai — a project or policy put forward experimentally to gauge reactions to it
- ballroom dance — a social dance, popular since the beginning of the 20th century, in conventional rhythms, such as the foxtrot and the quickstep
- bang's disease — a type of infectious brucellosis affecting cattle, caused by a bacterium (Brucella abortus) and often resulting in abortion
- banker's draft — A banker's draft is the same as a bank draft.
- banker's order — pay order, banker's cheque
- barrier island — a long island, parallel to the coastline, formed from a ridge of sand (barrier beach) thrown up by the waves, that serves the shore as a protective barrier against tidal waves, storms, etc.
- basting thread — inexpensive, loosely twisted thread that can be easily pulled out when permanent stitching is in place
- batten disease — a rare hereditary disease in which lipids accumulate in the nervous system, leading to mental deterioration, loss of mobility, and blindness that start in early childhood
- battered woman — See under battered woman syndrome.
- battered-women — the array of physical and psychological injuries exhibited by women (battered women or battered wives) who have been beaten repeatedly or otherwise abused by their partners or spouses.
- be in bad odor — to be in ill repute
- bead lightning — lightning in which the intensity appears to vary along the path and which thus resembles a string of beads.
- beard-stroking — deep thought
- bearded darnel — a grass, Lolium tementulum, related to rye, having bristles on the seed head and bearing seeds that yield a narcotic poison.
- bearded dragon — a large Australian lizard, Amphibolurus barbatus, with an erectile frill around the neck
- bedraggledness — The state or condition of being bedraggled.
- bedside manner — A doctor's bedside manner is the way in which they talk to their patients.
- belgian endive — endive (def 2).
- belgian-endive — endive (def 2).
- benday process — a process for adding tone or shading, as in reproducing drawings, by the overlay on the plate of patterns, as of dots
- benzodiazepine — any of a group of chemical compounds that are used as minor tranquillizers, such as diazepam (Valium) and chlordiazepoxide (Librium)
- berkner island — an island in Antarctica, in the S Weddell Sea, between the Ronne Ice Shelf and the Filchner Ice Shelf.
- bertrand meyer — The author of the Eiffel Language and many articles on object-oriented software techniques.
- beta reduction — [lambda-calculus] The application of a lambda abstraction to an argument expression. A copy of the body of the lambda abstraction is made and occurrences of the bound variable being replaced by the argument. E.g. (\ x . x+1) 4 --> 4+1 Beta reduction is the only kind of reduction in the pure lambda-calculus. The opposite of beta reduction is beta abstraction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion. See also name capture.
- beta-endorphin — a potent endorphin released by the anterior pituitary gland in response to pain, trauma, exercise, or other forms of stress.
- beta-oxidation — a process by which fatty acids are degraded, involving oxidation of the beta carbons and removal of successive two-carbon fragments from the fatty acid.
- beveridge plan — the plan for comprehensive social insurance, proposed by Sir William Beveridge in Great Britain in 1941.
- beyond a doubt — to be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe.
- beyond compare — If you describe something as beyond compare, you mean that it is extremely good or extremely great.
- beyond measure — If you say that something has changed or that it has affected you beyond measure, you are emphasizing that it has done this to a great extent.
- bib and tucker — an outfit of clothes (esp in the phrase best bib and tucker)
- bidding prayer — the formal petitionary prayer, said especially in the Anglican Church immediately before the sermon.
- bildungsromane — a type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist.
- binding handle — (networking) An identifier representing the connection between a client and server. An association between client/server end-points and protocols.
- binding rafter — a timber for supporting rafters between their extremities, as a purlin.
- binding strake — a very strong, heavy strake of planking, especially one next to a sheer strake.
- biodegradation — to decay and become absorbed by the environment: toys that will biodegrade when they're discarded.
- bioremediation — the use of plants to extract heavy metals from contaminated soils and water
- birds and bees — any warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, having a body covered with feathers, forelimbs modified into wings, scaly legs, a beak, and no teeth, and bearing young in a hard-shelled egg.
- black and blue — discolored, as by bruising; exhibiting ecchymosis: a black-and-blue mark on my knee.
- black bindweed — a twining polygonaceous European plant, Polygonum convolvulus, with heart-shaped leaves and triangular black seed pods
- black-and-blue — (of the skin) discoloured, as from a bruise
- bladder cancer — any cancer of the bladder
- blade-shearing — the shearing of sheep using hand shears