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16-letter words containing b, e, n, c

  • 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).
  • electric blanket — electrically-heated bedcover
  • embarkation card — an official document that allows travellers to leave a country by boarding a ship or plane
  • endocannabinoids — Plural form of endocannabinoid.
  • exhibition match — a sports match which is not part of a competition but instead serves the function of demonstrating the skills of the players
  • experience table — an actuarial table, esp a mortality table based on past statistics
  • fancy dress ball — a ball at which the guests wear fancy dress
  • feedback control — (electronics)   A control system which monitors its effect on the system it is controlling and modifies its output accordingly. For example, a thermostat has two inputs: the desired temperature and the current temperature (the latter is the feedback). The output of the thermostat changes so as to try to equalise the two inputs. Computer disk drives use feedback control to position the read/write heads accurately on a recording track. Complex systems such as the human body contain many feedback systems that interact with each other; the homeostasis mechanisms that control body temperature and acidity are good examples.
  • fibonacci number — a number in the Fibonacci sequence, each of which is the sum of the previous two
  • fibonacci series — a sequence of integers in which each integer (Fibonacci number) after the second is the sum of the two preceding integers; specif., the series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . .
  • flat-bed scanner — a type of optical scanner having a flat, stationary surface on which a page is scanned by a moving head.
  • flying ambulance — an aircraft used to take sick or injured people to hospital
  • forced vibration — Forced vibration is a type of vibration in which a force is repeatedly applied to a mechanical system.
  • galvanic battery — battery (def 1a).
  • gentlemen's club — a private social club whose members were traditionally aristocratic males
  • ground substance — Also called matrix. the homogeneous substance in which the fibers and cells of connective tissue are embedded.
  • growth substance — any substance, produced naturally by a plant or manufactured commercially, that, in very low concentrations, affects plant growth; a plant hormone
  • hendecasyllables — Plural form of hendecasyllable.
  • horseback riding — activity: riding a horse
  • huckleberry finn — (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) a novel (1884) by Mark Twain.
  • humboldt current — a cold Pacific Ocean current flowing N along the coasts of Chile and Peru.
  • huntington beach — a city in SW California, SE of Los Angeles.
  • icterine warbler — a European variety of tree warbler (Hippolais icterina )
  • inaccessibleness — The quality or state of being inaccessible or unreachable.
  • inapplicableness — The state or quality of being inapplicable; inapplicability.
  • incommensurables — Plural form of incommensurable.
  • incomprehensible — impossible to understand or comprehend; unintelligible.
  • incomprehensibly — impossible to understand or comprehend; unintelligible.
  • inconceivability — (uncountable) The quality of being inconceivable.
  • inconsolableness — The quality of being inconsolable.
  • incontestability — incapable of being contested; not open to dispute; incontrovertible: incontestable proof.
  • incontravertable — Misspelling of incontrovertible.
  • incontrovertible — not controvertible; not open to question or dispute; indisputable: absolute and incontrovertible truth.
  • incontrovertibly — not controvertible; not open to question or dispute; indisputable: absolute and incontrovertible truth.
  • inconvertibility — The condition of being inconvertible.
  • incorporated bar — (in some states) a system of bar associations to which all lawyers are required to belong.
  • incorrigibleness — The quality of being incorrigible; incorrigibility.
  • indescribability — (uncountable) The state or characteristic of being indescribable.
  • indiscernibility — The state or characteristic of being indiscernible; inability to be observed.
  • inexplicableness — The state of being difficult to account for; the state of being inexplicable.
  • insurance broker — person who sells insurance policies
  • insusceptibility — not susceptible; incapable of being influenced or affected (usually followed by of or to): insusceptible of flattery; insusceptible to infection.
  • intercalibration — to determine, check, or rectify the graduation of (any instrument giving quantitative measurements).
  • interconvertible — to subject to interconversion; interchange.
  • jacques bonhomme — the contemptuous title given by the nobles to the peasants in the revolt of the Jacquerie in 1358 and adopted by the peasants in subsequent revolts.
  • kentucky warbler — a wood warbler, Oporornis formosus, of the U.S., olive-green above, yellow below, and marked with black on the face.
  • kit and caboodle — a set or collection of tools, supplies, instructional matter, etc., for a specific purpose: a first-aid kit; a sales kit.
  • knapsack problem — the problem of determining which numbers from a given collection of numbers have been added together to yield a specific sum: used in cryptography to encipher (and sometimes decipher) messages.
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