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16-letter words containing b, a

  • background paper — a report or other piece of writing that is intended to provide contextual and historical information that will help people understand a particular topic or situation
  • backus-naur form — (language, grammar)   (BNF, originally "Backus Normal Form") A formal metasyntax used to express context-free grammars. Backus Normal Form was renamed Backus-Naur Form at the suggestion of Donald Knuth. BNF is one of the most commonly used metasyntactic notations for specifying the syntax of programming languages, command sets, and the like. It is widely used for language descriptions but seldom documented anywhere (how do you document a metasyntax?), so that it must usually be learned by osmosis (but see RFC 2234). Consider this BNF for a US postal address: ::= ::= | "." ::= [] | ::= [] ::= "," This translates into English as: "A postal-address consists of a name-part, followed by a street-address part, followed by a zip-code part. A personal-part consists of either a first name or an initial followed by a dot. A name-part consists of either: a personal-part followed by a last name followed by an optional "jr-part" (Jr., Sr., or dynastic number) and end-of-line, or a personal part followed by a name part (this rule illustrates the use of recursion in BNFs, covering the case of people who use multiple first and middle names and/or initials). A street address consists of an optional apartment specifier, followed by a street number, followed by a street name. A zip-part consists of a town-name, followed by a comma, followed by a state code, followed by a ZIP-code followed by an end-of-line." Note that many things (such as the format of a personal-part, apartment specifier, or ZIP-code) are left unspecified. These lexical details are presumed to be obvious from context or specified somewhere nearby. There are many variants and extensions of BNF, possibly containing some or all of the regexp wild cards such as "*" or "+". EBNF is a common one. In fact the example above isn't the pure form invented for the ALGOL 60 report. "[]" was introduced a few years later in IBM's PL/I definition but is now universally recognised. ABNF is another extension.
  • backward-looking — If you describe someone or something as backward-looking, you disapprove of their attitudes, ideas, or actions because they are based on old-fashioned opinions or methods.
  • bacterial canker — a disease of plants, characterized by cankers and usually by exudation of gum, caused by bacteria, as of the genera Pseudomonas and Corynebacterium.
  • bacterioplankton — (biology) The bacterial component of marine plankton.
  • badminton racket — the type of racket used in games of badminton
  • baggage handling — the work of dealing with and sorting passengers' baggage at an airport
  • bahasa indonesia — the official language of Indonesia: developed from the form of Malay formerly widely used as a trade language in SE Asia
  • balance of power — The balance of power is the way in which power is distributed between rival groups or countries.
  • balance of trade — A country's balance of trade is the difference in value, over a period of time, between the goods it imports and the goods it exports.
  • balance transfer — the act of transferring debt from one credit card to another, assuming that the second card has better terms or interest rates than the first
  • balearic islands — a group of islands in the W Mediterranean, consisting of Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza, Formentera, Cabrera, and 11 islets: a province of Spain. Capital: Palma, on Majorca. Pop: 1 071 500 (2003 est). Area: 5012 sq km (1935 sq miles)
  • balkan mountains — a mountain range extending across Bulgaria from the Black Sea to the eastern border. Highest peak: Mount Botev, 2376 m (7793 ft)
  • balkan peninsula — a large peninsula in SE Europe, between the Adriatic and Aegean Seas
  • ball-peen hammer — a hammer with one end of the head rounded and the other end flat
  • ballast resistor — ballast (def 5a).
  • ballast-resistor — Nautical. any heavy material carried temporarily or permanently in a vessel to provide desired draft and stability.
  • ballistic camera — a camera for tracking missiles launched at night.
  • balloon catheter — a type of catheter with a tiny, inflatable balloon at the tip, used in various surgical procedures
  • balloon mortgage — A balloon mortgage is a mortgage on which the repayments are relatively small until the large final payment.
  • ballroom dancing — Ballroom dancing is a type of dancing in which a man and a woman dance together using fixed sequences of steps and movements.
  • balsamic vinegar — Balsamic vinegar is a type of vinegar which tastes sweet and is made from grape juice.
  • baltimore canyon — a submarine valley cut into the continental shelf and slope seaward of Chesapeake Bay.
  • baltimore heater — a stove for heating a lower and upper room, having its fire door in the lower room.
  • baltimore oriole — a North American oriole, Icterus galbula, the male of which has orange and black plumage
  • baluster measure — an antique liquid measure usually made of pewter, having a concave top on a convex base.
  • banana republics — any of the small countries in the tropics, especially in the Western Hemisphere, whose economies are largely dependent on fruit exports, tourism, and foreign investors.
  • band-pass filter — a filter that transmits only those currents having a frequency lying within specified limits
  • bankruptcy court — a section of the United States federal court which specializes in the handling of bankruptcy cases
  • bankruptcy order — a court order appointing a receiver to manage the property of a debtor or bankrupt
  • banned substance — In sport, banned substances are drugs that competitors are not allowed to take because they could artificially improve their performance.
  • barbecue stopper — a controversial current-affairs issue
  • barbed tributary — a tributary that joins its mainstream in an upstream direction rather than in the more common downstream direction.
  • barclay de tolly — Prince Mikhail (mixaˈil). 1761–1818, Russian field marshal: commander in chief against Napoleon in 1812
  • bare necessities — only the essentials
  • bargain basement — If you refer to something as a bargain basement thing, you mean that it is cheap and not very good quality.
  • bargain-basement — very low-priced.
  • bargaining agent — an organization, usually a trade union, that acts or bargains on behalf of a group of employees in collective bargaining
  • bargaining level — the level within an organizational hierarchy, such as company level, national level, etc, at which collective bargaining takes place
  • bargaining power — the ability of a person, group, or organization to exert influence over another party in a negotiation in order to achieve a deal which is favourable to themselves
  • bargaining scope — the range of topics within the scope of a particular set of negotiations leading to a collective agreement
  • bargaining table — a table around which the parties involved in a negotiation sit
  • barium carbonate — a white, poisonous, water-insoluble powder, BaCO 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of rodenticides, paints, and dyes.
  • barium hydroxide — a white poisonous crystalline solid, used in the manufacture of organic compounds and in the preparation of beet sugar. Formula: Ba(OH)2
  • barometric error — error of a timepiece due to the fluctuations in density of the atmosphere through which the balance or pendulum moves.
  • baron tweedsmuir — the title of Scottish novelist John Buchan
  • barrier of ideas — the representations of objects which certain accounts of perception interpose between the objects themselves and our awareness of them, so that, as critics argue, we can never know whether there is in reality anything which resembles our perceptions
  • bartholomeu dias — Bartholomeu [bahr-too-loo-me-oo] /ˌbɑr tʊ lʊˈmɛ ʊ/ (Show IPA), c1450–1500, Portuguese navigator: discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope.
  • basal anesthesia — anesthesia induced as a preliminary to further and deeper anesthesia
  • basal metabolism — the amount of energy required by an individual in the resting state, for such functions as breathing and circulation of the blood
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