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17-letter words containing b, a

  • blank endorsement — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
  • blasphemous libel — In Britain, previously, the crime committed if a person insults, offends, or vilifies the deity, Christ, or the Christian religion
  • blessed sacrament — the consecrated elements of the Eucharist
  • blind carbon copy — a duplicate of anything written or typed, or a copy of an email or other electronic document, that is sent to someone whose name is not visible to the primary addressee. Abbreviation: bcc.
  • block association — an association for the residents of a particular block in a neighbourhood to discuss and act on matters of common concern
  • blocking antibody — Immunology. an antibody that partly combines with an antigen and interferes with cell-mediated immunity, thereby preventing an allergic reaction.
  • blood and thunder — A blood and thunder performer or performance is very loud and emotional.
  • blood transfusion — A blood transfusion is a process in which blood is injected into the body of a person who is badly injured or ill.
  • blood-and-thunder — sensationalism, violence, or exaggerated melodrama: a movie full of blood and thunder.
  • blow hot and cold — to vacillate
  • blow someone away — to kill by shooting
  • blowpipe analysis — a type of chemical analysis in which the intensely hot flame of a blowpipe vaporizes a mineral or other substance with a characteristically colored flame and a unique odor, so as to identify chemical elements in a substance
  • blue dog democrat — a fiscally conservative member of the Democratic Party
  • blue false indigo — a North American plant, Baptisia australis, of the legume family, having wedge-shaped leaflets and blue, clustered flowers.
  • blue sky software — eHelp Corporation
  • blue-headed vireo — solitary vireo.
  • bluegrass country — region in central Ky. where there is much bluegrass
  • board and lodging — If you are provided with board and lodging, you are provided with food and a place to sleep, especially as part of the conditions of a job.
  • board of estimate — a special organ of a municipal government, as of New York City, composed of the mayor, the president of the city council, and the controller, and charged with approving the city's budget and fiscal matters.
  • board of managers — a group of people responsible for managing an organization
  • board of trustees — a governing board which directs the policies of an educational institution
  • board-and-shingle — a small dwelling with wooden walls and a shingle roof
  • boat-billed heron — a nocturnal, tropical American wading bird (Cochlearius cochlearius) with a large, broad bill: it is the only member of a family (Cochleariidae) of wading birds
  • boatswain's chair — a seat consisting of a short flat board slung from ropes, used to support a person working on the side of a vessel or in its rigging
  • body center plate — one of a pair of plates that fit together and support the body of a car on a truck, while allowing the truck to rotate with respect to the body. One plate (body center plate) is attached to the underside of the car body and the other (truck center plate) is part of the car truck.
  • body modification — any method of permanently adorning the body, including tattooing and piercing
  • bohemian brethren — a Protestant Christian sect formed in the 15th century from various Hussite groups, which rejected oaths and military service and advocated a pure and disciplined spiritual life. It was reorganized in 1722 as the Moravian Church
  • boileau-despreaux — Nicolas [nee-kaw-lah] /ni kɔˈlɑ/ (Show IPA), 1636–1711, French critic and poet.
  • bombardier beetle — any of various small carabid beetles of the genus Brachinus, esp B. crepitans of Europe, which defend themselves by ejecting a jet of volatile fluid
  • bond immunization — immunization (def 2).
  • bone marrow donor — a person who donates bone marrow
  • book depreciation — Book depreciation is depreciation in a company's internal financial records that is different from the amount that is used for taxes.
  • boolean operation — any operation in which each of the operands and the result take one of two values.
  • boothia peninsula — a peninsula of N Canada: the northernmost part of the mainland of North America, lying west of the Gulf of Boothia, an arm of the Arctic Ocean
  • boots and saddles — a bugle call formerly used in the US Cavalry to summon soldiers to mount
  • bore-stroke ratio — The bore-stroke ratio is the ratio of bore to stroke. A ratio of 1:1 is referred to informally as square.
  • bottlebrush grass — a North American grass, Hystrix patula, having loose flower spikes with long awns.
  • boulder raspberry — a shrub, Rubus deliciosus, of Colorado, having large white flowers and purple fruit.
  • bouncebackability — the ability to recover after a setback, esp in sport
  • bradford spinning — a wool-spinning method in which the fibers are oiled prior to combing and subsequently spun into worsted yarn.
  • brain haemorrhage — bleeding into the brain
  • branch delay slot — delayed control-transfer
  • branch prediction — (processor, algorithm)   A technique used in some processors with instruction prefetch to guess whether a conditional branch will be taken or not and prefetch code from the appropriate location. When a branch instruction is executed, its address and that of the next instruction executed (the chosen destination of the branch) are stored in the Branch Target Buffer. This information is used to predict which way the instruction will branch the next time it is executed so that instruction prefetch can continue. When the prediction is correct (and it is over 90% of the time), executing a branch does not cause a pipeline break. Some later CPUs simply prefetch both paths instead of trying to predict which way the branch will go. An extension of the idea of branch prediction is speculative execution.
  • brazilian emerald — a green variety of tourmaline used as a gem: not a true emerald.
  • brazilian peridot — a light yellowish-green tourmaline used as a gem: not a true peridot.
  • brazilian rhatany — See under rhatany (def 1).
  • breach of promise — (formerly) failure to carry out one's promise to marry
  • break one's heart — to grieve or cause to grieve very deeply, esp through love
  • break the back of — to complete the greatest or hardest part of (a task)
  • breakdown service — a service that provides assistance to motorists who break down
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