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16-letter words containing b, a, l, s

  • basilar membrane — a membrane inside the cochlea that vibrates in response to sound
  • bastard culverin — a 16th-century cannon, smaller than a culverin, firing a shot of between 5 and 8 pounds (11 and 17.6 kg).
  • bastard toadflax — any of several low-growing, often parasitic plants of the genus Comandra, having alternate leaves and clusters of small whitish flowers.
  • bearing pedestal — an independent support for a bearing, usually incorporating a bearing housing
  • behavioural sink — a small area in which people or animals live in overcrowded conditions
  • belgian malinois — one of a Belgian breed of medium-sized dogs having a short coat, tan to dark brown in color, a black mask, and erect ears, bred originally as a sheepherding dog.
  • belgian sheepdog — any of a Belgian breed of large herding dog with a black coat, sometimes used as a guide dog
  • bells of ireland — an annual garden plant, Moluccella laevis, whose flowers have a green cup-shaped calyx: family Lamiaceae (labiates)
  • belted-bias tire — a motor-vehicle tire of the same construction as a bias-ply tire but with an added belt of steel or a strong synthetic material under the tread.
  • benoit samuelson — Joan (Joan Benoit) born 1957, U.S. distance runner: first Olympic marathon women's winner, 1984.
  • bertrand russell — (person)   (1872-1970) A British mathematician, the discoverer of Russell's paradox.
  • bias-belted tire — belted-bias tire.
  • bicapitalisation — The act said to have been performed on trademarks (such as PostScript, NeXT, NeWS, VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalisation. Too many marketroid types think this sort of thing is really cute, even the 2,317th time they do it. Compare studlycaps.
  • biliary calculus — an abnormal stonelike mass, usually of cholesterol, formed in the gallbladder or bile passages.
  • bimetallic strip — a strip consisting of two metals of different coefficients of expansion welded together so that it buckles on heating: used in thermostats, etc
  • binocular fusion — fusion (def 5a).
  • binocular-fusion — the act or process of fusing; the state of being fused.
  • bipolar disorder — Bipolar disorder is a mental illness in which a person's state of mind changes between extreme happiness and extreme depression.
  • bird's-eye maple — a cut of sugar maple wood used especially for veneers, having a wavy grain with many dark, circular markings.
  • bite one's nails — to chew off the ends of one's fingernails
  • black nightshade — a poisonous solanaceous plant, Solanum nigrum, a common weed in cultivated land, having small white flowers with backward-curved petals and black berry-like fruits
  • black-eyed susan — any of several North American plants of the genus Rudbeckia, esp R. hirta, having flower heads of orange-yellow rays and brown-black centres: family Asteraceae (composites)
  • blasting gelatin — a type of plastic dynamite containing about 7 percent of a cellulose nitrate, used chiefly in underwater work.
  • blenheim spaniel — a variety of toy spaniel that is white with reddish-brown spots
  • blind man's buff — a game in which a blindfolded person tries to catch and identify the other players
  • blind man's rule — a carpenter's rule having large numbers to permit its reading in dim light.
  • blind salamander — any of several North American salamanders, especially of the genera Typhlotriton, Typhlomolge, and Haideotriton, that inhabit underground streams or deep wells and have undeveloped eyes and scant pigmentation.
  • blow one's stack — to lose one's temper; fly into a rage
  • bluegrass region — a region in central Kentucky, famous for its horse farms and fields of bluegrass.
  • boarding kennels — a place where dog owners can pay to have their dogs looked after while they are away
  • bonneville flats — an area of salt flats in the W part of Great Salt Lake Desert, in NW Utah: site of automobile speed tests.
  • bootstrap loader — (operating system)   A short program loaded from non-volatile storage and used to bootstrap a computer. On early computers great efforts were expended on making the bootstrap loader short, in order to make it easy to toggle in via the front panel switches. It was just clever enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from punched cards or paper tape), to which it handed control. This program in turn read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer "pulled itself up by its bootstraps" to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap loader is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the "boot block". When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it. A diskless workstation can use bootp to load its OS from the network.
  • bordelaise sauce — a dark sauce made from meat stock, flour, wine, onions, seasonings, etc., served over broiled meat
  • bornholm disease — an epidemic virus infection characterized by pain round the base of the chest
  • borosilicic acid — any of several hypothetical acids that form borosilicates.
  • bouquet larkspur — a plant, Delphinium grandiflorum, of eastern Asia, having blue or whitish flowers and hairy fruit.
  • bowman's capsule — a membranous, double-walled capsule surrounding a glomerulus of a nephron.
  • bracknell forest — a unitary authority in SE England, in E Berkshire. Pop: 110 100 (2003 est). Area: 109 sq km (42 sq miles)
  • braille embosser — Braille printer
  • breakfast cereal — a type of food made from a cereal plant and commonly eaten at breakfast
  • british columbia — a province of W Canada, on the Pacific coast: largely mountainous with extensive forests, rich mineral resources, and important fisheries. Capital: Victoria. Pop: 4 400 057 (2011 est). Area: 930 532 sq km (359 279 sq miles)
  • british longhair — a breed of large cat with a semi-long thick soft coat
  • brittany spaniel — a short-tailed French bird dog that typically has a smooth orange- or liver-and-white coat
  • brittle diabetes — uncontrolled insulin disorder
  • broad-shouldered — having broad shoulders
  • bronchial asthma — asthma.
  • buckley's chance — no chance at all
  • bullet-resistant — not allowing bullets to pass through
  • bullying tactics — the use of intimidation to gain one's objective
  • bundled software — software sold as part of a package with computers or other hardware or software
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