15-letter words containing b, a, r, l
- binomial series — an infinite series obtained by expanding a binomial raised to a power that is not a positive integer.
- biobibliography — a bibliography containing biographical sketches of the authors listed.
- biot-savart law — the law that the magnetic induction near a long, straight conductor, as wire, varies inversely as the distance from the conductor and directly as the intensity of the current in the conductor.
- black horehound — a hairy unpleasant-smelling chiefly Mediterranean plant, Ballota nigra, having clusters of purple flowers: family Lamiaceae (labiates)
- black marketeer — A black marketeer is someone who sells goods on the black market.
- black operation — a covert and undocumented military operation
- black raspberry — a plant, Rubus occidentalis, of E North America, that has black berry-like fruits
- black sea bream — a sparid fish, Spondyliosoma cantharus, found in N Europe and the Mediterranean
- black september — a Palestinian Terrorist group, responsible for the assassinations of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games at Munich in 1972
- black snakeroot — a tall bugbane, Cimicifuga racemosa, of the buttercup family, of eastern North America, having thin, tapering, toothed or deeply cut leaflets and branched clusters of small, white flowers.
- black-marketeer — to sell articles in the black market.
- blackberry bush — a bush on which blackberries grow
- blackberry lily — an ornamental Chinese iridaceous plant, Belamcanda chinensis, that has red-spotted orange flowers and clusters of black seeds that resemble blackberries
- bladder campion — a European caryophyllaceous plant, Silene vulgaris, having white flowers with an inflated calyx
- blank cartridge — a cartridge containing powder but no bullet: used in battle practice or as a signal
- blasting powder — a form of gunpowder made with sodium nitrate instead of saltpeter, used chiefly for blasting rock, ore, etc.
- blenheim orange — a type of apple tree bearing gold-coloured apples
- blockade runner — a person, ship etc that tries to carry goods through a blockade
- blockade-runner — a ship or person that passes through a blockade.
- blue wood aster — a composite plant, Aster cordifolius, of North America, having heart-shaped leaves and pale-blue flowers.
- blue-eyed grass — any of various mainly North American iridaceous marsh plants of the genus Sisyrinchium that have grasslike leaves and small flat starlike blue flowers
- bluegrass state — Kentucky (used as a nickname).
- board of health — an agency with responsibility for health in state, country, etc
- board of parole — an agency that determines which prisoners are to be released on parole
- boarding school — A boarding school is a school which some or all of the pupils live in during the school term. Compare day school.
- boolean algebra — a system of symbolic logic devised by George Boole to codify logical operations. It is used in computers
- borderline case — a person or thing that is not clearly classifiable as something
- brachial plexus — a network of nerves in the armpits and neck, innervating the shoulders, arms, and hands.
- brachiocephalic — of, relating to, or supplying the arm and head
- braille display — (hardware) (Or "refreshable braille display", "refreshable display") An electromechanical device that renders braille with tiny, independently controlled pins used to represent the state of dots in braille cells. Each pin, in its "on" state, raises above the top of its hole in the screen; in its "off" state, it drops below the top of its hole. Older systems used tiny solenoids to control the state of the pins; modern systems are piezoelectric. Typical dimensions of a braille display are 1 line of 40 cells, each cell of two-by-eight dots.
- braille printer — (printer) (Or "(Braille) embosser") A printer, necessarily an impact printer, that renders text as Braille. Blind users call other printers ink printers.
- branchial cleft — Zoology. one of a series of slitlike openings in the walls of the pharynx between the branchial arches of fishes and aquatic amphibians through which water passes from the pharynx to the exterior.
- branchial pouch — one of a series of rudimentary outcroppings of the inner pharyngeal wall, corresponding to the branchial grooves on the surface.
- branching rules — rules that are used to break down a complex problem into several smaller problems
- bravais lattice — any of 14 possible space lattices found in crystals
- brave new world — If someone refers to a brave new world, they are talking about a situation or system that has recently been created and that people think will be successful and fair.
- brazilian guava — a Brazilian shrub, Psidium guineense, of the myrtle family, having white-fleshed, greenish-yellow, bitter fruit.
- brazilian plume — a tropical American plant, Justicia carnea, of the acanthus family, having hairy, prominently veined leaves and a short, dense cluster of purple or pink flowers, grown in greenhouses or outdoors in warm regions.
- break the mould — If you say that someone breaks the mould, you mean that they do completely different things from what has been done before or from what is usually done.
- breakfast table — You refer to a table as the breakfast table when it is being used for breakfast.
- breaking plough — a plough with a long shallow mouldboard for turning virgin land or sod land
- breath analyzer — an instrument consisting of a small bag or tube filled with chemically treated crystals, into which a sample of a motorist's breath is taken as a test for intoxication.
- brill's disease — a form of epidemic typhus fever in which the disease recurs years after the original infection
- brillat-savarin — Anthelme (ɑ̃tɛlm). 1755–1826, French lawyer and gourmet; author of Physiologie du Goût (1825)
- bristol channel — an inlet of the Atlantic, between S Wales and SW England, merging into the Severn estuary. Length: about 137 km (85 miles)
- bristol fashion — clean and neat, with newly painted and scrubbed surfaces, brass polished, etc
- britannia metal — an alloy of low melting point consisting of tin with 5–10 per cent antimony, 1–3 per cent copper, and sometimes small quantities of zinc, lead, or bismuth: used for decorative purposes and for bearings
- british library — the British national library, formed in 1973 from the British Museum library and other national collections: housed mainly in the British Museum until 1997 when a purpose-built library in St Pancras, London, was completed
- bronchial tubes — the bronchi or their smaller divisions
- bronzed grackle — the western subspecies of the American bird, the common grackle, Quiscalus quiscula versicolor, having bronzy, iridescent plumage.