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18-letter words containing b, a, l, i

  • behavioral science — any of several studies, as sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc., that examine human activities in an attempt to discover recurrent patterns and to formulate rules about social behavior
  • bellingshausen sea — an area of the S Pacific Ocean off the coast of Antarctica
  • bells and whistles — additional features or accessories which are nonessential but very attractive
  • benzyl thiocyanate — a colorless, crystalline, water-insoluble solid, C 8 H 7 NS, used as an insecticide.
  • bernoulli equation — Hydrodynamics. Bernoulli's theorem (def 2).
  • beta-naphthylamine — a white to reddish, crystalline, water-soluble, extremely toxic solid, C 10 H 9 N, used chiefly in the manufacture of azo dyes.
  • bhumibol adulyadej — (Phumiphon Aduldet; Bhumibol Adulyadej) born 1927, king of Thailand since 1946.
  • bilateral symmetry — the property of an organism or part of an organism such that, if cut in only one plane, the two cut halves are mirror images of each other
  • bill of quantities — a document drawn up by a quantity surveyor providing details of the prices, dimensions, etc, of the materials required to build a large structure, such as a factory
  • biological control — the control of destructive organisms by the use of other organisms, such as the natural predators of the pests
  • biological parents — the biological mother and father of a child
  • biological therapy — biotherapy
  • biological warfare — the use of living organisms or their toxic products to induce death or incapacity in humans and animals and damage to plant crops, etc
  • biomedical package — (language, library, statistics)   (BMDP) A statistical language and library of over forty statistical routines developed in 1961 at UCLA, Health Sciences Computing Facility under Dr. Wilford Dixon. BMDP was first implemented in Fortran for the IBM 7090. Tapes of the original source were distributed for free all over the world. BMDP is the second iteration of the original BIMED programs. It was developed at UCLA Health Sciences Computing facility, with NIH funding. The "P" in BMDP originally stood for "parameter" but was later changed to "package". BMDP used keyword parameters to defined what was to be done rather than the fixed card format used by original BIMED programs. BMDP supports many statistical funtions: simple data description, survival analysis, ANOVA, multivariate analyses, regression analysis, and time series analysis. BMDP Professional combines the full suite of BMDP Classic (Dynamic) release 7.0 with the BMDP New System 2.0 Windows front-end.
  • bipolar transistor — (electronics)   A transistor made from a sandwich of n- and p-type semiconductor material: either npn or pnp. The middle section is known as the "base" and the other two as the "collector" and "emitter". When used as an amplifying element, the base to emitter junction is in a "forward-biased" (conducting) condition, and the base to collector junction is "reverse-biased" or non-conducting. Small changes in the base to emitter current (the input signal) cause either holes (for pnp devices) or free electrons (for npn) to enter the base from the emitter. The attracting voltage of the collector causes the majority of these charges to cross into and be collected by the collector, resulting in amplification. Contrast field effect transistor.
  • biz-core stability — (security)   Internet security products which secure the business core.
  • black lives matter — a political and social movement originating among African Americans, emphasizing basic human rights and racial equality for black people and campaigning against various forms of racism. Abbreviations: BLM, B.L.M.
  • black nickel oxide — a gray-black, water-insoluble powder, Ni 2 O 3 , which, at 600°C, decomposes to nickel oxide: used chiefly in storage batteries as an oxidizing agent.
  • blackwater rafting — the sport of riding through underground caves on a large rubber tube
  • blanche of castile — ?1188–1252, queen consort (1223–26) of Louis VIII of France, born in Spain. The mother of Louis IX, she acted as regent during his minority (1226–36) and his absence on a crusade (1248–52)
  • blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
  • blocking capacitor — a capacitor that blocks the passage of direct current but allows alternating current to pass
  • bloggs family, the — An imaginary family consisting of Fred and Mary Bloggs and their children. Used as a standard example in knowledge representation to show the difference between extensional and intensional objects. For example, every occurrence of "Fred Bloggs" is the same unique person, whereas occurrences of "person" may refer to different people. Members of the Bloggs family have been known to pop up in bizarre places such as the DEC Telephone Directory. Compare Mbogo, Dr. Fred.
  • bloodbrain barrier — a layer of tightly packed cells that make up the walls of brain capillaries and prevent substances in the blood from diffusing freely into the brain: passage across the cell membranes is determined by solubility in the lipid bilayer or recognition by a transport molecule.
  • blue-plate special — an inexpensive restaurant meal served at a fixed price on a large plate, originally blue
  • board of elections — a bipartisan board appointed usually by local authorities and charged with control of elections and voting procedure.
  • bomb disposal unit — a unit of the police or armed services specializing in bomb disposal
  • boole's inequality — the theorem that the probability of several events occurring is less than or equal to the sum of the probabilities of each event occurring.
  • borosilicate glass — any of a range of heat- and chemical-resistant glasses, such as Pyrex, prepared by fusing together boron(III) oxide, silicon dioxide, and, usually, a metal oxide
  • branch to fishkill — (IBM: from the location of one of the corporation's facilities) Any unexpected jump in a program that produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See jump off into never-never land, hyperspace.
  • brazilian rosewood — a Brazilian tree, Dalbergia nigra, of the legume family.
  • brazilian sapphire — a blue variety of tourmaline used as a gem: not a true sapphire.
  • break your silence — If someone breaks their silence about something, they talk about something that they have not talked about before or for a long time.
  • brewer's blackbird — a blackbird, Euphagus cyanocephalus, of the U.S., the male of which has greenish-black plumage with a purplish-black head.
  • bring-and-buy sale — A bring-and-buy sale is an informal sale to raise money for a charity or other organization. People who come to the sale bring things to be sold and buy things that other people have brought.
  • british somaliland — a former British protectorate (1884–1960) in E Africa, on the Gulf of Aden: united with Italian Somaliland in 1960 to form Somalia (or the Somali Republic); in 1991 the self-styled republic of Somaliland, covering the same area as the former British Somaliland, declared itself independent and continues to function largely as a separate entity, though without international recognition
  • broken twill weave — a twill weave in which the direction of the diagonal produced by the weft threads is reversed after no more than two passages of the weft.
  • building materials — materials such as bricks, cement, timber, etc
  • burkitt's lymphoma — a cancer characterized by tumors containing lymphoid cells, occurring esp. in children, in the jaw, eyes, and internal organs: it is associated with the Epstein-Barr virus
  • butler's sideboard — a sideboard, often with a fall front, having on its top a china cabinet with glazed doors.
  • california rosebay — a Pacific coast shrub or tree (Rhododendron californicum) of the heath family, with rosy or purplish flowers
  • camel's-hair brush — an artist's small brush, made of hair from a squirrel's tail
  • cape breton island — an island off SE Canada, in NE Nova Scotia, separated from the mainland by the Strait of Canso: its easternmost point is Cape Breton. Pop: 132 298 (2006). Area: 10 280 sq km (3970 sq miles)
  • carboxyhaemoglobin — haemoglobin coordinated with carbon monoxide, formed as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. As carbon monoxide is bound in preference to oxygen, tissues are deprived of oxygen
  • carisbrooke castle — a castle near Newport on the Isle of Wight: Charles I was held prisoner here from 1647 until his execution in 1649
  • cepheid (variable) — any of a class of pulsating, yellow, supergiant stars whose brightness varies in regular periods: from the period-luminosity relation, the distance of such a star can be determined
  • cerebral dominance — the normal tendency for one half of the brain, usually the left cerebral hemisphere in right-handed people, to exercise more control over certain functions (e.g. handedness and language) than the other
  • chambered nautilus — nautilus (def 1).
  • character-building — improving certain good or useful traits in a person's character, esp self-reliance, endurance, and courage
  • cheval de bataille — a horse used in battle; charger.
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