16-letter words containing a, t, b, r
- overexcitability — to excite too much.
- overurbanization — the act or fact of urbanizing, or taking on the characteristics of a city: Urbanization has led to more air pollution and increasing childhood asthma.
- oxidation number — the state of an element or ion in a compound with regard to the electrons gained or lost by the element or ion in the reaction that formed the compound, expressed as a positive or negative number indicating the ionic charge of the element or ion.
- paint-by-numbers — formulaic; showing no original thought or creativity
- paratuberculosis — Johne's disease.
- pass-band filter — band-pass filter
- peach tree borer — the larva of any of several clearwing moths, as Sanninoidea exitiosa, that bore into the wood of the peach and other drupaceous trees.
- permafrost table — the variable surface constituting the upper limit of permafrost. Compare frostline (def 2).
- personal liberty — the liberty of an individual to do his or her will freely except for those restraints imposed by law to safeguard the physical, moral, political, and economic welfare of others.
- photograph album — bound book for photos
- pietermaritzburg — a province in the E part of the Republic of South Africa. 35,284 sq. mi. (91,886 sq. km). Capital: Pietermaritzburg.
- planetary nebula — an expanding shell of thin ionized gas that is ejected from and surrounds a hot, dying star of about the same mass as the sun; the gas absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the central star and reemits it as visible light by the process of fluorescence.
- plant bargaining — a form of bargaining within industry, involving either informal small groups of employees or collective agreements at plant level
- platform-balance — a scale with a platform for holding the items to be weighed.
- pocket billiards — pool2 (def 1).
- poor boy sweater — a snug-fitting, pullover sweater with ribbing on both the body and sleeves, worn by girls and women.
- port phillip bay — a bay in SE Australia: the harbor of Melbourne. 31 miles (50 km) long; 25 miles (40 km) wide.
- portable airtime — (communications, wireless) A wireless, digital communications system enabling user-to-user voice communication, "quicknotes", and alphanumeric messaging.
- potato tuberworm — the larva of the potato moth.
- presentation box — a specially designed and attractive box to hold a product, and make it look more impressive
- pro-abolitionist — (especially prior to the Civil War) a person who advocated or supported the abolition of slavery in the U.S.
- public relations — (used with a plural verb) the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc.
- public transport — fare-paying travel
- rainbow lorikeet — a small Australasian parrot, Trichoglossus haematodus, with brightly-coloured plumage
- rambunctiousness — difficult to control or handle; wildly boisterous: a rambunctious child.
- ramen profitable — If a startup business is ramen profitable, it is barely profitable, just enough to allow the founder to live on the cheapest diet.
- random vibration — Random vibration is a type of forced vibration in which the motion follows no regular pattern.
- raster subsystem — (graphics) The part of a graphics system concerned with an image after it has been transformed and scaled to screen coordinates. It includes scan conversion and display.
- re-establishment — the act or an instance of establishing.
- reaction chamber — the chamber in a rocket engine in which the reaction or combustion of fuel occurs
- reaction turbine — a turbine driven by the reactive force of a fluid passing through the rotor blades.
- reasonable doubt — law: grounds for believing sb is innocent
- rectus abdominis — a long flat muscle that extends along the whole length of both sides of the abdomen. It flexes the vertebral column, particularly the lumbar portion; it also tenses the anterior abdominal wall and assists in compressing the abdominal contents
- redbank whiteoak — a city in S Tennessee.
- redistributional — a distribution performed again or anew.
- relative bearing — the bearing of an object, relative to the heading of a vessel or aircraft.
- republican party — one of the two major political parties in the U.S.: originated 1854–56.
- rhythm and blues — a folk-based but urbanized form of black popular music that is marked by strong, repetitious rhythms and simple melodies and was developed, in a commercialized form, into rock-'n'-roll.
- rhythm-and-blues — a folk-based but urbanized form of black popular music that is marked by strong, repetitious rhythms and simple melodies and was developed, in a commercialized form, into rock-'n'-roll.
- rich tea biscuit — any of various semisweet biscuits
- right about face — Military. a command, given to a soldier or soldiers at attention, to turn the body about toward the right so as to face in the opposite direction. the act of so turning in a prescribed military manner.
- right honourable — (in Britain and certain Commonwealth countries) a title of respect for a Privy Councillor or an appeal-court judge
- robin's plantain — the rattlesnake weed, Hieracium venosum.
- rough and tumble — characterized by violent, random, disorderly action and struggles: a rough-and-tumble fight; He led an adventuresome, rough-and-tumble life.
- rough-and-tumble — characterized by violent, random, disorderly action and struggles: a rough-and-tumble fight; He led an adventuresome, rough-and-tumble life.
- roundabout chair — corner chair.
- run the blockade — to go past or through a blockade
- run-time library — (operating system, programming, library) A file containing routines which are linked with a program at run time rather than at compile-time. The advantage of such dynamic linking is that only one copy of the library needs to be stored, rather than a copy being included with each executable that refers to it. This can greatly reduce the disk space occupied by programs. Furthermore, it means that all programs immediately benefit from changes (e.g. bug fixes) to the single copy of the library without requiring recompilation. Since the library code is normally classified as read-only to the memory management system, it is possible for a single copy of the library to be loaded into memory and shared by all active programs, thus reducing RAM and virtual memory requirements and program load time.
- sabattier effect — the alteration of the image tones of a photographic print by briefly reexposing the negative after it has been partially developed.
- saint petersburg — Also called Russian Empire. Russian Rossiya. a former empire in E Europe and N and W Asia: overthrown by the Russian Revolution 1917. Capital: St. Petersburg (1703–1917).