15-letter words containing b, e, d, o
- beyond question — a sentence in an interrogative form, addressed to someone in order to get information in reply.
- beyond sb's ken — If something is beyond your ken, you do not have enough knowledge to be able to understand it.
- beyond the pale — If you think that someone's actions or behaviour are not acceptable, you can say that they are beyond the pale.
- bide one's time — to wait patiently for an opportunity
- bidirectionally — in a bidirectional manner
- billings method — a natural method of birth control that involves examining the colour and viscosity of the cervical mucus to discover when ovulation is occurring
- biodestructible — biodegradable
- bird of passage — If you refer to someone as a bird of passage, you mean that they are staying in a place for a short time before going to another place.
- bit on the side — an extramarital affair
- bit-mapped font — a computer font whose characters are held in memory as series of dots.
- bits per second — (communications, unit) (bps, b/s) The unit in which data rate is measured. For example, a modem's data rate is usually measured in kilobits per second. In 1996, the maximum modem speed for use on the PSTN was 33.6 kbps, rising to 56 kbps in 1997. Note that kilo- (k), mega- (M), etc. in data rates denote powers of 1000, not 1024.
- black horehound — a hairy unpleasant-smelling chiefly Mediterranean plant, Ballota nigra, having clusters of purple flowers: family Lamiaceae (labiates)
- bladder campion — a European caryophyllaceous plant, Silene vulgaris, having white flowers with an inflated calyx
- blasting powder — a form of gunpowder made with sodium nitrate instead of saltpeter, used chiefly for blasting rock, ore, etc.
- blockade runner — a person, ship etc that tries to carry goods through a blockade
- blockade-runner — a ship or person that passes through a blockade.
- blocked records — (storage) Several records written as a contiguous block on magnetic tape so that they may be accessed in a single I/O operation. Blocking increases the amount of data that may be stored on a tape because there are fewer inter-block gaps. It requires that the tape drive or processor have a sufficiently large buffer to store the whole block.
- blood corpuscle — one of the cells in the blood
- bloodguiltiness — guilty of murder or bloodshed.
- bloody butchers — a hardy plant, Trillium sessile, common from New York to Georgia and westward, having stalkless, purple or green flowers.
- blossom-end rot — a disease of tomato and pepper caused by a deficiency of calcium, characterized by decay at the blossom end of the fruit.
- blow one's mind — (in a human or other conscious being) the element, part, substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.: the processes of the human mind.
- blue cattle dog — an Australian breed of dog with a bluish coat, developed for herding cattle
- blue wood aster — a composite plant, Aster cordifolius, of North America, having heart-shaped leaves and pale-blue flowers.
- bo diddley beat — a type of syncopated Black rhythm, frequently used in rock music
- board of health — an agency with responsibility for health in state, country, etc
- board of parole — an agency that determines which prisoners are to be released on parole
- board-certified — A doctor who is board-certified has passed tests and meets the standards of a board of specialists in their area of medicine.
- body mass index — A person's body mass index is a measurement that represents the relationship between their weight and their height.
- boiled dressing — a cooked salad dressing thickened with egg yolks and often containing mustard.
- boiled potatoes — potatoes, usually peeled, cooked in boiling water
- bone conduction — the transmission of sound vibrations to the internal ear through the cranial bones (opposed to air conduction).
- bonheur-du-jour — a delicate fall-front desk of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
- border incident — an incident, usually fighting, on a border between countries
- borderline case — a person or thing that is not clearly classifiable as something
- borrower's card — a card issued by a library to individuals or organizations entitling them or their representatives to borrow materials.
- bottled in bond — stored in bonded warehouses for a stated length of time before being bottled, as some whiskey
- bottom-up model — (programming) A method for estimating the cost of a complete software project by combining estimates for each component.
- boustrophedonic — of or relating to lines written in opposite directions
- brand extension — the practice of using a well-known brand name to promote new products or services in unrelated fields
- brave new world — If someone refers to a brave new world, they are talking about a situation or system that has recently been created and that people think will be successful and fair.
- bread and honey — money
- break the mould — If you say that someone breaks the mould, you mean that they do completely different things from what has been done before or from what is usually done.
- break-in period — a period during which certain restrictions or moderation in operating should be followed, as the avoidance of high speed, rapid acceleration, or severe braking for a new automobile.
- breakdown cover — insurance cover against breakdowns in a vehicle
- breeder reactor — a type of nuclear reactor that produces more fissionable material than it consumes
- breeding ground — If you refer to a situation or place as a breeding ground for something bad such as crime, you mean that this thing can easily develop in that situation or place.
- breeding season — the time of year during which animals breed
- bridge of sighs — a covered 16th-century bridge in Venice, between the Doges' Palace and the prisons, through which prisoners were formerly led to trial or execution
- bring to a head — to bring or be brought to a crisis