16-letter words containing b, c, i, n, g
- debating society — a club, e.g. at a school or university, which regularly holds debates
- discombobulating — Present participle of discombobulate.
- double centering — a method of extending a survey line by taking the average of two foresights, one with the telescope direct and one with it inverted, made each time by transiting the telescope after a backsight.
- double-clutching — (of a bird) to produce a second clutch of eggs after the first has been removed, usually for hatching in an incubator.
- eclipsing binary — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
- economic embargo — a legal stoppage of commerce, usually taken by one nation or group of nations to harm the economy of another nation or group, often to force a political change
- el camino bignum — (humour) /el' k*-mee'noh big'nuhm/ The road mundanely called El Camino Real, a road through the San Francisco peninsula that originally extended all the way down to Mexico City and many portions of which are still intact. Navigation on the San Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real, which defines logical north and south even though it isn't really north-south many places. El Camino Real runs right past Stanford University. The Spanish word "real" (which has two syllables: /ray-al'/) means "royal"; El Camino Real is "the royal road". In the Fortran language, a "real" quantity is a number typically precise to seven significant digits, and a "double precision" quantity is a larger floating-point number, precise to perhaps fourteen significant digits (other languages have similar "real" types). When a hacker from MIT visited Stanford in 1976, he remarked what a long road El Camino Real was. Making a pun on "real", he started calling it "El Camino Double Precision" - but when the hacker was told that the road was hundreds of miles long, he renamed it "El Camino Bignum", and that name has stuck. (See bignum).
- family balancing — the choosing of the sex of a future child on the basis of how many children of each sex a family already has
- flying ambulance — an aircraft used to take sick or injured people to hospital
- galvanic battery — battery (def 1a).
- global community — the people or nations of the world, considered as being closely connected by modern telecommunications and as being economically, socially, and politically interdependent
- horseback riding — activity: riding a horse
- huntington beach — a city in SW California, SE of Los Angeles.
- incorrigibleness — The quality of being incorrigible; incorrigibility.
- leaf-cutting bee — any of the bees of the family Megachilidae that cut circular pieces from leaves or flowers to line their nests.
- liebig condenser — a laboratory condenser consisting of a glass tube surrounded by a glass envelope through which cooling water flows
- longicorn beetle — any beetle of the family Cerambycidae, having a long narrow body, long legs, and long antennae
- magnetic bearing — the bearing of a point relative to that of the nearest magnetic pole.
- niche publishing — publishing books that are intended for a very specialized market
- nitrogen balance — the difference between the amount of nitrogen taken in and the amount excreted or lost: used to evaluate nutritional balance.
- number crunching — a person or thing that performs a great many numerical calculations, as a financial analyst, statistician, computer, or computer program.
- number-crunching — a person or thing that performs a great many numerical calculations, as a financial analyst, statistician, computer, or computer program.
- objective danger — a danger, such as a stone fall or avalanche, to which climbing skill is irrelevant
- publicity agency — an advertising agency; a firm that gets publicity for people or products
- santiago de cuba — a region in Ecuador, E of the Andes: the border long disputed by Peru.
- scribbling block — scratch pad.
- self-lubricating — to apply some oily or greasy substance to (a machine, parts of a mechanism, etc.) in order to diminish friction; oil or grease (something).
- simon boccanegra — an opera (1857) by Giuseppe Verdi.
- subcartilaginous — partially or incompletely cartilaginous.
- subsistence wage — the lowest wage upon which a worker and his or her family can survive
- tungsten carbide — a very hard, black or gray compound of tungsten and carbon, used in the manufacture of cutting and abrasion tools, dies, and wear-resistant machine parts.
- virginia tobacco — a type of flue-cured tobacco grown originally in Virginia