17-letter words containing b, e, n, c
- cistern barometer — a mercury barometer in which the lower mercury surface has a greater area than the upper.
- civil libertarian — a person who actively supports or works for the protection or expansion of civil liberties.
- clear box testing — white box testing
- climbing accident — an accident occurring during climbing
- close the book on — to bring to a definite end
- close to the bone — If something is too close to the bone, it makes you feel uncomfortable because it is very close to the truth or to the real nature of something.
- clumber (spaniel) — a short-legged spaniel with a heavy body and a thick coat of straight, white hair marked with yellow or orange
- collaborativeness — Quality of being collaborative.
- collecting tubule — the part of a nephron that collects the urine from the distal convoluted tubule and discharges it into the pelvis of the kidney.
- combe-capelle man — a skeleton of the early Upper Paleolithic Perigordian culture in France.
- combine harvester — A combine harvester is a large machine which is used on farms to cut, sort, and clean grain.
- combustion engine — any of various types of engines driven by energy produced by combustion.
- companionableness — The state or quality of being companionable.
- comprehensibility — capable of being comprehended or understood; intelligible.
- concurrent oberon — (language) A concurrent version of Oberon. There is an implementation the Ceres workstation.
- condensing boiler — an energy-efficient boiler that makes use of what would otherwise be waste heat
- congo-brazzaville — a republic in W Central Africa: formerly the French colony of Middle Congo, part of French Equatorial Africa, it became independent in 1960; consists mostly of equatorial forest, with savanna and extensive swamps; drained chiefly by the Rivers Congo and Ubangi. Official language: French. Religion: Christian majority. Currency: franc. Capital: Brazzaville. Pop: 4 492 689 (2013 est). Area: 342 000 sq km (132 018 sq miles)
- contingency table — an array having the frequency of occurrence of certain events in each of a number of samples
- contrasuggestible — responding or tending to respond to a suggestion by doing or believing the opposite
- convoluted tubule — a portion of the nephron in the kidney that functions in concentrating urine and in maintaining salt, water, and sugar balance.
- count one's beads — to pray with a rosary
- countersubversive — Also, subversionary [suh b-vur-zhuh-ner-ee, -shuh-] /səbˈvɜr ʒəˌnɛr i, -ʃə-/ (Show IPA). tending or intending to subvert or overthrow, destroy, or undermine an established or existing system, especially a legally constituted government or a set of beliefs.
- cross the rubicon — If you say that someone has crossed the Rubicon, you mean that they have reached a point where they cannot change a decision or course of action.
- cry in one's beer — to lament or complain in a maudlin manner
- dagestan republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the Caspian Sea: annexed from Persia in 1813; rich mineral resources. Capital: Makhachkala. Pop: 2 584 200 (2002). Area: 50 278 sq km (19 416 sq miles)
- de-baathification — the process of removing the members and influence of the Ba'ath Party from public office in Iraq following the US-led invasion of 2003
- debt rescheduling — the process of changing the time frame or deadline for the repayment of debt, usually to ease the burden on the debtor
- deoxyribonuclease — DNase.
- desoxyribonucleic — Alternative spelling of deoxyribonucleic.
- dietrich von bern — Theodoric of Verona: the name of the eastern Gothic emperor Theodoric as it appears in German legends.
- discreditableness — Quality of being discreditable.
- disposable income — the part of a person's income remaining after deducting personal income taxes.
- doberman pinscher — one of a German breed of medium-sized, short-haired dogs having a black, brown, or blue coat with rusty brown markings.
- double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.
- double track line — a railway line with double track
- economic blockade — an embargo on trade with a country, esp one which prohibits receipt of exports from that country, with the intention of disrupting the country's economy
- egyptian brackets — (programming, humour) A humourous term for K&R indent style, referring to the "one hand up in front, one down behind" pose which popular culture inexplicably associates with Egypt.
- executive burnout — a total loss of energy and interest and an inability to function effectively, experienced by some executives as a result of excessive demands upon their resources or chronic overwork
- exhibition centre — a large building in which major trade fairs are held
- fine-toothed comb — a comb with fine, closely set teeth
- flowering tobacco — any plant belonging to the genus Nicotiana, of the nightshade family, as N. alata and N. sylvestris, having clusters of fragrant flowers that usually bloom at night, grown as an ornamental.
- fort walton beach — a city in NW Florida.
- fulgencio batista — Fulgencio [fool-hen-syaw] /fulˈhɛn syɔ/ (Show IPA), (Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar) 1901–73, Cuban military leader: dictator of Cuba 1934–40; president 1940–44, 1952–59.
- get one's back up — the rear part of the human body, extending from the neck to the lower end of the spine.
- green book cd-rom — A standard CD-ROM format developed by Philips for CD-i. It is ISO 9660 compliant and uses mode 2 form 2 addressing. It can only be played on drives which are XA (Extended Architecture) compatible. Many Green Book discs contain CD-i applications which can only be played on a CD-i player but many others contain films or music videos. Video CDs in Green Book format are normally labelled "Digital Video on CD" Green Book was obsoleted by White book CD-ROM in March 1994.
- henry cabot lodge — Henry Cabot, 1850–1924, U.S. public servant and author: senator 1893–1924.
- high-carbon steel — steel containing between 0.5 and 1.5 per cent carbon
- histamine blocker — any of various substances that act at a specific receptor site to block certain actions of histamine.
- hornblende schist — a variety of schist containing needles of hornblende that lie in parallel planes.
- hubble's constant — the ratio of the recessional velocity of galaxies to their distance from the sun, with current measurements of its value ranging from 50 to 100 km/sec per megaparsec.