14-letter words containing b, a
- beauty parlour — A beauty parlour is a place where women can go to have beauty treatments, for example to have their hair, nails or make-up done.
- béchamel sauce — a thick white sauce flavoured with onion and seasonings
- bechamel-sauce — a white sauce, sometimes seasoned with onion and nutmeg.
- beclomethasone — a potent synthetic corticosteroid, C 28 H 37 ClO 7 , prepared as an inhalant in the treatment of bronchial asthma.
- becquerel rays — rays given off by radioactive substances
- bedraggledness — The state or condition of being bedraggled.
- bedside manner — A doctor's bedside manner is the way in which they talk to their patients.
- beggar's opera — a ballad opera (1728) with text by John Gay and music arranged by John Pepusch.
- beggar's-ticks — tick trefoil
- belaya tserkov — city in WC Ukraine: pop. 204,000
- belaying cleat — a cleat used for belaying
- belgian endive — endive (def 2).
- belgian-endive — endive (def 2).
- belisha beacon — a flashing light in an orange globe mounted on a post, indicating a pedestrian crossing on a road
- belleek (ware) — a fine, glossy, often iridescent pottery resembling porcelain
- belletristical — relating to the fine arts
- bellingshausen — Fabian Gottlieb von [fey-bee-uh n-got-leeb von] /ˈfeɪ bi ənˈgɒt lib vɒn/ (Show IPA), (Faddey Faddeyevich Bellingshauzen) 1778–1852, Russian naval officer and explorer.
- belvoir castle — a castle in Leicestershire, near Grantham (in Lincolnshire): seat of the Dukes of Rutland; rebuilt by James Wyatt in 1816
- benday process — a process for adding tone or shading, as in reproducing drawings, by the overlay on the plate of patterns, as of dots
- beneficialness — the state of being beneficial
- bengal catechu — catechu.
- benzanthracene — a carcinogenic hydrocarbon
- benzodiazepine — any of a group of chemical compounds that are used as minor tranquillizers, such as diazepam (Valium) and chlordiazepoxide (Librium)
- benzyl acetate — a colorless liquid, C 9 H 10 O 2 , having a flowerlike odor: used chiefly for flavoring tobacco and in soaps and cosmetics.
- benzyl alcohol — a colorless, faintly aromatic, slightly water-soluble liquid, C 7 H 8 O, used chiefly as a solvent in the manufacture of perfumes and flavorings, and as an intermediate in the synthesis of benzyl esters and ethers.
- berberidaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Berberidaceae, a mainly N temperate family of flowering plants (mostly shrubs), including barberry and barrenwort
- berkner island — an island in Antarctica, in the S Weddell Sea, between the Ronne Ice Shelf and the Filchner Ice Shelf.
- bermuda collar — a narrow, pointed collar on a woman's dress or blouse
- bermuda cutter — a marconi-rigged cutter.
- bermuda shorts — close-fitting shorts that come down to the knees
- bertrand meyer — The author of the Eiffel Language and many articles on object-oriented software techniques.
- beta geminorum — Pollux
- beta reduction — [lambda-calculus] The application of a lambda abstraction to an argument expression. A copy of the body of the lambda abstraction is made and occurrences of the bound variable being replaced by the argument. E.g. (\ x . x+1) 4 --> 4+1 Beta reduction is the only kind of reduction in the pure lambda-calculus. The opposite of beta reduction is beta abstraction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion. See also name capture.
- beta structure — a secondary structure occurring in many proteins, consisting of several polypeptide chains running in parallel or alternating directions and joined by intermolecular hydrogen bonds, creating a flexible, strong arrangement.
- beta-endorphin — a potent endorphin released by the anterior pituitary gland in response to pain, trauma, exercise, or other forms of stress.
- beta-oxidation — a process by which fatty acids are degraded, involving oxidation of the beta carbons and removal of successive two-carbon fragments from the fatty acid.
- betake oneself — to go; move
- bethlehem sage — a plant, Pulmonaria saccharata, of the borage family, native to Europe, having mottled, white leaves and white or reddish-purple flowers in clusters.
- betray oneself — to reveal one's true character, intentions, etc
- betterment tax — a tax on an increase in the value of property effected by improvement
- beveridge plan — the plan for comprehensive social insurance, proposed by Sir William Beveridge in Great Britain in 1941.
- beyond a doubt — to be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe.
- beyond compare — If you describe something as beyond compare, you mean that it is extremely good or extremely great.
- beyond measure — If you say that something has changed or that it has affected you beyond measure, you are emphasizing that it has done this to a great extent.
- bezier surface — (graphics) A surface defined by mathematical formulae, used in computer graphics. A surface P(u, v), where u and v vary orthogonally from 0 to 1 from one edge of the surface to the other, is defined by a set of (n+1)*(m+1) "control points" (X(i, j), Y(i, j), Z(i, j)) for i = 0 to n, j = 0 to m.
- bib and tucker — an outfit of clothes (esp in the phrase best bib and tucker)
- biblical latin — the form of Latin used in versions of the Bible, esp the form used in the Vulgate
- bibliomaniacal — relating to a bibliomaniac
- biceps brachii — See under biceps.
- bicuspid valve — mitral valve