17-letter words containing a, r, i, s, t
- aviation industry — a collective term for the companies involved in air transport
- axis of ordinates — y-axis (def 1).
- axis-of-ordinates — y-axis (def 1).
- back on the rails — If something is back on the rails, it is beginning to be successful again after a period when it almost failed.
- bacteriorhodopsin — a purple protein containing retinal and found in the plasma membrane of certain bacteria (genus Halobacterium): it directly supplies electrochemical energy from sunlight
- barmecide (feast) — a pretended feast with no food
- barrel distortion — distortion of an image produced by an optical system that causes straight lines at image margins to bulge outwards
- bartholin's gland — either of two small glands near the vaginal opening: during sexual excitement they secrete a mucous lubricating substance
- base lending rate — a minimum interest rate on which financial institutions base the rates they use for lending
- baseboard heating — a heating system by pipes, through which steam or hot water circulates, near the base of the walls of rooms
- basic proposition — protocol (def 6).
- basic service set — (networking) (BSS) A wireless local area network and all the wireless devices (e.g. PCs and laptops) that are associated with it. A BSS may or may not include an access point and is identified by a BSSID.
- bathroom fittings — plumbing fixtures or accessories suitable for use in a bathroom
- beat one's brains — to try hard to remember, understand, or solve something
- beer and skittles — enjoyment or pleasure
- bell laboratories — One of AT&T's research sites, in Murray Hill, New Jersey, USA. It was the birthplace of the transistor, Unix, C and C++ and the current home of research on Plan 9 and ODE.
- bell-hanger's bit — a bit for drilling small holes through studs or the like.
- best first search — (algorithm) A graph search algorithm which optimises breadth first search by ordering all current paths according to some heuristic. The heuristic attempts to predict how close the end of a path is to a solution. Paths which are judged to be closer to a solution are extended first. See also beam search, hill climbing.
- bighorn mountains — range of the Rocky Mountains in N Wyo. and S Mont.: highest peak, 13,165 ft (4,013 m)
- binary opposition — a relation between the members of a pair of linguistic items, as a pair of distinctive features, such that one is the absence of the other, as voicelessness and voice, or that one is at the opposite pole from the other, as stridency and mellowness.
- biotransformation — the metabolizing of some substance, esp. a drug, in the body
- blackout curtains — thick, lined curtains designed to shut out all daylight and keep a room in complete darkness
- blood transfusion — A blood transfusion is a process in which blood is injected into the body of a person who is badly injured or ill.
- board of estimate — a special organ of a municipal government, as of New York City, composed of the mayor, the president of the city council, and the controller, and charged with approving the city's budget and fiscal matters.
- boatswain's chair — a seat consisting of a short flat board slung from ropes, used to support a person working on the side of a vessel or in its rigging
- bore-stroke ratio — The bore-stroke ratio is the ratio of bore to stroke. A ratio of 1:1 is referred to informally as square.
- bricks and mortar — You can use bricks and mortar to refer to houses and other buildings, especially when they are considered as an investment.
- british cameroons — a former British trust territory of West Africa
- british columbian — of or relating to British Columbia or its inhabitants
- british israelite — a member of a religious movement claiming that the British people are descended from the lost tribes of Israel
- british shorthair — a breed of large cat with a short dense coat
- british-cameroons — German Kamerun. a region in W Africa: a German protectorate 1884–1919; divided in 1919 into British and French mandates.
- broadview heights — a town in N Ohio.
- buyers' inflation — inflation in which rising demand results in a rise in prices.
- caesarean section — A Caesarean or a Caesarean section is an operation in which a baby is lifted out of a woman's womb through an opening cut in her abdomen.
- campus university — a university in which the buildings, often including shops and cafés, are all on one site
- cancer specialist — a medical professional who specializes in the treatment or study of malignant growths or tumours
- capital structure — the way that a company finances its assets through a combination of equity, debt etc
- carbon offsetting — a program in which a company, country, etc., reduces or offsets its carbon emissions through the funding of activities and projects that improve the environment: Carbon offsetting does not always have a quantifiable impact on the planet.
- cardio striptease — a form of keep-fit exercise in which people move their bodies in the manner of striptease artists
- cardiorespiratory — of, relating to, or affecting the heart and respiratory system.
- cariboo mountains — a mountain range in SW Canada, in SE British Columbia. Highest peak: Mount Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 3520 m (11 549 ft)
- carlos de austria — Don [dawn] /dɔn/ (Show IPA), 1545–68, eldest son of Philip II of Spain: died during imprisonment for conspiracy against his father.
- cartesian product — the set of all ordered pairs of members of two given sets. The product A × B is the set of all pairs <a, b> where a is a member of A and b is a member of B
- casting the runes — (jargon) What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program because it never works for anyone else; especially used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does. Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight.
- castle in the air — a hope or desire unlikely to be realized; daydream
- catastrophization — The act or process of catastrophizing.
- causality paradox — the hypothetical cause-and-effect of time travel and making changes in the past that would affect current actions.
- cavalier servente — a lover; suitor.
- celestial equator — the great circle lying on the celestial sphere, the plane of which is perpendicular to the line joining the north and south celestial poles