13-letter words containing b, a, c, t
- auction block — Also called block. a platform from which an auctioneer sells: the old courthouse where slaves were sold from the auction block.
- baby snatcher — a person who steals a baby from its pram
- baccalaureate — The baccalaureate is an examination taken by students at the age of eighteen in France and some other countries.
- bachelor flat — a flat lived in, or intended for a bachelor
- bachelorettes — Plural form of bachelorette.
- back mutation — the reversion of a mutant to the original phenotype
- back straight — a straight part of a circuit, esp of an athletics track or a racecourse, furthest from the finishing point
- back to front — If you are wearing something back to front, you are wearing it with the back of it at the front of your body. If you do something back to front, you do it the wrong way around, starting with the part that should come last.
- back-stabbing — Back-stabbing consists of unkind and disloyal actions or remarks that are likely to harm someone such as a friend or colleague.
- back-up light — a light on the rear of a motor vehicle to warn others that the vehicle is being reversed
- backbone site — A key Usenet, electronic mail and/or Internet site; one that processes a large amount of third-party traffic, especially if it is the home site of any of the regional coordinators for the Usenet maps. Notable backbone sites as of early 1993 include uunet and the mail machines at Rutgers University, UC Berkeley, DEC's Western Research Laboratories, Ohio State University and the University of Texas. Compare rib site, leaf site.
- backformation — Alternative spelling of back-formation.
- backing light — Also called backing striplight, backing strip. Theater. a striplight providing diffused illumination for the background of a stage set.
- backing store — a computer storage device, usually a disk, that provides additional storage space for information so that it can be accessed and referred to when required and may be copied into the processor if needed
- backing track — a recorded instrumental or vocal accompaniment for a pop singer or pop number
- backscratcher — an implement with a long handle, used for scratching one's back
- backstitching — Present participle of backstitch.
- backwardation — the difference between the spot price for a commodity, including rent and interest, and the forward price
- bacteriocidal — Alternative spelling of bactericidal.
- bacteriogenic — Caused by bacteria.
- bacteriologic — a branch of microbiology dealing with the identification, study, and cultivation of bacteria and with their applications in medicine, agriculture, industry, and biotechnology.
- bacteriolysin — an antibody which, when it combines with bacterial cells, causes lysis of those cells, thus destroying them
- bacteriolysis — the destruction or disintegration of bacteria
- bacteriolytic — disintegration or dissolution of bacteria.
- bacteriophage — a virus that is parasitic in a bacterium and multiplies within its host, which is destroyed when the new viruses are released
- bacteriophagy — the action of a bacteriophage
- bacterioscopy — the examination of bacteria with a microscope.
- bacteriostats — Plural form of bacteriostat.
- bacteriotoxin — any toxin that kills bacteria
- bacterization — subjection to bacterial action
- badminton cup — a long refreshing drink of claret with soda water and sugar
- bag of tricks — a container or receptacle of leather, plastic, cloth, paper, etc., capable of being closed at the mouth; pouch.
- bag-snatching — theft that involves snatching women's handbags
- balance shaft — a shaft in a vehicle engine that is designed to reduce the amount of vibration from other moving parts as it rotates
- balance sheet — A balance sheet is a written statement of the amount of money and property that a company or person has, including amounts of money that are owed or are owing. Balance sheet is also used to refer to the general financial state of a company.
- balance staff — a pivoted axle or shaft on which the balance is mounted.
- balanced diet — a diet consisting of the proper quantities and proportions of foods needed to maintain health or growth.
- balanced step — any of a series of staircase winders so planned that they are nearly as wide at the inside of the stair as the adjacent fliers.
- balanced tree — (algorithm) An optimisation of a tree which aims to keep equal numbers of items on each subtree of each node so as to minimise the maximum path from the root to any leaf node. As items are inserted and deleted, the tree is restructured to keep the nodes balanced and the search paths uniform. Such an algorithm is appropriate where the overheads of the reorganisation on update are outweighed by the benefits of faster search. A B-tree is a kind of balanced tree that can have more than two subtrees at each node (i.e. one that is not restricted to being a binary tree).
- balancing act — If you perform a balancing act, you try to deal successfully with two or more people, groups, or situations that are in opposition to each other.
- ball the jack — a spherical or approximately spherical body or shape; sphere: He rolled the piece of paper into a ball.
- ballet dancer — a man or woman who takes part in ballet dancing, usually professionally
- ballet school — a school where professional ballet dancers are trained
- ballistically — of or relating to ballistics.
- baltic shield — the wide area of ancient rock in Scandinavia
- baltic states — the republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which became constituent republics of the former Soviet Union in 1940, regaining their independence in 1991
- band spectrum — a spectrum consisting of a number of bands of closely spaced lines that are associated with emission or absorption of radiation by molecules
- bandicoot rat — any of three burrowing rats of the genera Bandicota and Nesokia, of S and SE Asia: family Muridae
- banister back — a back of a chair or the like, usually having semicircular spindles between the top rail and the cross rail or seat.
- bank discount — interest on a loan deducted from the principal amount when the loan is made and based on the loan's face value