16-letter words containing b, a, u, r
- labour-intensive — Labour-intensive industries or methods of making things involve a lot of workers. Compare capital-intensive.
- labrador current — a cold ocean current flowing southwards off the coast of Labrador and meeting the warm Gulf Stream, causing dense fogs off the coast of Newfoundland
- language barrier — difficulty in communication due to language difference
- lean-burn engine — an engine designed to use a lean mixture of fuel and air in order to reduce petrol consumption and exhaust emissions
- leveraged buyout — the purchase of a company with borrowed money, using the company's assets as collateral, and often discharging the debt and realizing a profit by liquidating the company. Abbreviation: LBO.
- liberal unionist — a Liberal who opposed Gladstone's policy of Irish Home Rule in 1886 and after
- library pictures — a caption used to alert viewers that footage being broadcast is from an earlier time and is not happening now
- like gangbusters — a law-enforcement officer who specializes in breaking up organized crime, often by forceful or sensational means.
- lumberjack shirt — a thick checked shirt, as worn by lumberjacks
- madame butterfly — an opera (1904) by Giacomo Puccini.
- mahalla el kubra — a city in Egypt, on the Nile delta.
- mari el republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Yoshkar-Ola. Pop: 728 000 (2002). Area: 23 200 sq km (8955 sq miles)
- martin van buren — Martin, 1782–1862, 8th president of the U.S. 1837–41.
- mesembryanthemum — any of various chiefly Old World plants of the genus Mesembryanthemum, having thick, fleshy leaves and often showy flowers.
- mossbauer effect — the phenomenon in which an atom in a crystal undergoes no recoil when emitting a gamma ray, giving all the emitted energy to the gamma ray, resulting in a sharply defined wavelength.
- mountain climber — someone who climbs or walks up mountains
- mulberry harbour — either of two prefabricated floating harbours towed across the English Channel to the French coast for the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944
- multi-way branch — switch statement
- multituberculate — a rodentlike mammal of the extinct order Multituberculata, which lived from the late Jurassic Period to the Oligocene Epoch, reaching the size of a woodchuck and having molars with two or three rows of simple pointed cusps.
- murasaki shikibu — Lady, 978?–1031? Japanese poet and novelist.
- nash equilibrium — (in game theory) a stable state of a system involving the interaction of two or more players in which no player can gain by a unilateral change of strategy if the strategies of the other players remain unchanged
- nitrous bacteria — bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrites in the soil
- non-attributable — to regard as resulting from a specified cause; consider as caused by something indicated (usually followed by to): She attributed his bad temper to ill health.
- non-bureaucratic — of, relating to, or characteristic of a bureaucrat or a bureaucracy; arbitrary and routine.
- nondurable goods — goods that remain usable for, or must be replaced within, a relatively short period of time, as food, apparel, or fabrics
- norwegian buhund — a slightly-built medium-sized dog of a breed with erect pointed ears and a short thick tail carried curled over its back
- nubuck (leather) — tanned leather similar to suede, but with the nap on the grain side
- nuclear membrane — the double membrane surrounding the nucleus within a cell.
- nuclear umbrella — a guarantee from a country or state that possesses nuclear weapons to a country that does not that they will defend them
- numbered account — a bank account whose owner is identified by a number for the purpose of preserving anonymity.
- oblique triangle — any triangle that does not have a right angle (contrasted with right triangle).
- obsequent stream — a stream flowing in a direction opposite to that of the dip of the local strata.
- onboard computer — onboard a vehicle, ship, plane, train or spacecraft
- operating budget — money allocated to a project
- ordinary jubilee — the celebration of any of certain anniversaries, as the twenty-fifth (silver jubilee) fiftieth (golden jubilee) or sixtieth or seventy-fifth (diamond jubilee)
- organized labour — labour carried out by workers in trade unions, or the workers themselves
- outboard profile — an exterior side elevation of a vessel, showing all deck structures, rigging, fittings, etc.
- 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.
- 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.
- potato tuberworm — the larva of the potato moth.
- 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
- query by example — (database, language) (QBE) A user-friendly query language developed by Moshé Zloof of IBM in 1975.
- rambunctiousness — difficult to control or handle; wildly boisterous: a rambunctious child.
- 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.