19-letter words containing b, e, o, s
- keyboard instrument — any musical instrument that is played using a keyboard
- kilobits per second — (unit) (kbps, kb/s) A unit of data rate where 1 kb/s = 1000 bits per second. This contrasts with units of storage where 1 Kb = 1024 bits (note upper case K).
- knock someone bandy — to amaze or astound
- lean over backwards — to make a special effort, esp in order to please
- library of congress — one of the major library collections in the world, located in Washington, D.C., and functioning in some ways as the national library of the U.S. although not officially designated as such: established by Congress in 1800 for service to its members, but now also serving government agencies, other libraries, and the public.
- line-of-battle ship — ship of the line.
- lobby correspondent — a political correspondent who reports from parliament
- lobster-tail helmet — a burgonet fitted with a long, articulated tail of lames for protecting the nape of the neck, worn by cavalry in the 17th century.
- louis ii de bourbon — Condé, Prince de.
- magnesium carbonate — a white powder, MgCO 3 , insoluble in water and alcohol, soluble in acids, used in dentifrices and cosmetics, in medicine as an antacid, and as a refractory material.
- make no bones about — Anatomy, Zoology. one of the structures composing the skeleton of a vertebrate. the hard connective tissue forming the substance of the skeleton of most vertebrates, composed of a collagen-rich organic matrix impregnated with calcium, phosphate, and other minerals.
- make the best of it — cope
- malleable cast iron — white cast iron that has been malleablized.
- megabits per second — (unit) (Mbps, Mb/s) Millions of bits per second. A unit of data rate. 1 Mb/s = 1,000,000 bits per second (not 1,048,576). E.g. Ethernet can carry 10 Mbps.
- membership function — fuzzy subset
- molecular biologist — a specialist in the study of biological phenomena at the molecular level
- newtown st boswells — a village in SE Scotland, administrative centre of Scottish Borders: agricultural centre. Pop: 1199 (2001)
- nominative absolute — a construction consisting in English of a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun in the nominative case followed by a predicate lacking a finite verb, used as a loose modifier of the whole sentence, as the play done in The play done, the audience left the theater.
- non-distinguishable — to mark off as different (often followed by from or by): He was distinguished from the other boys by his height.
- non-transferability — to convey or remove from one place, person, etc., to another: He transferred the package from one hand to the other.
- object-oriented sql — (language) (OSQL) A functional language, a superset of SQL, used in Hewlett-Packard's OpenODB database system.
- objectfuscated code — (humour, programming) Object-oriented code which has been abstracted to so many levels that no-one can understand it anymore. A play on obfuscated code.
- observation balloon — a balloon that is used for gathering information and reconnaissance purposes and spotting aircraft
- obsolescence clause — a clause in an insurance policy that takes account of the obsolescence of the item insured in order to lower the amount to be paid out in the event of a claim
- olive-backed thrush — Swainson's thrush.
- on someone's behalf — in / on behalf of, as a representative of or a proxy for: On behalf of my colleagues, I address you tonight.
- on the baker's list — in good health
- optical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
- out at (the) elbows — shabby; poverty-stricken
- over sb's dead body — You can say over my dead body to emphasize that you feel very strongly that something should not happen, and that you will do everything you can to prevent it.
- own flesh and blood — If you say that someone is your own flesh and blood, you are emphasizing that they are a member of your family.
- palaeoethnobotanist — someone who studies fossil seeds and grains to further archaeological knowledge, esp of the domestication of cereals
- palomar observatory — an astronomical observatory situated on Palomar Mountain in S California, having a 200-inch (508-cm) reflecting telescope and a 48-inch (122-cm) Schmidt telescope.
- pancreatic fibrosis — cystic fibrosis.
- personal belongings — possessions; things that belong to someone
- pied-de-biche spoon — a spoon having a handle with a trifid end.
- pointe-aux-trembles — a city in S Quebec, in E Canada, N of Montreal, on the St. Lawrence.
- portobello mushroom — a dark mushroom, strong in flavor, having a broad, flat cap that is often grilled and eaten
- post office problem — (algorithm) Given a set of points (in N dimensions), find another point which minimises the sum of the distances from that point to each of the others.
- potassium bisulfate — a colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KHSO 4 , used chiefly in the conversion of tartrates to bitartrates.
- potassium carbonate — a white, granular, water-soluble powder, K 2 CO 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, glass, and potassium salts.
- protease inhibitors — a drug that inhibits the action of protease, especially any of a class of antiviral drugs that prevent the cleavage and replication of HIV proteins.
- provably unsolvable — The set or property of problems for which no algorithm at all exists. E.g. the Halting Problem. See also provably difficult.
- pseudo-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
- pseudorandom number — (programming) One of a sequence of numbers generated by some algorithm so as to have an even distribution over some range of values and minimal correlation between successive values. Pseudorandom numbers are used in simulation and encryption. They are pseudorandom not random because the sequence eventually repeats exactly and is entirely determined by the initial conditions. One of the simplest algorithms is x[i+1] = (a * x[i] + c) mod m but this repeats after at most m numbers and successive numbers are closely related. Better algorithms generally use more previous numbers to calculate the next number.
- put one's back into — to devote all one's strength to (a task)
- queen anne's bounty — a fund formed by Queen Anne in 1704 for the augmentation of the livings of the poorer Anglican clergy. In 1948 the administrators of the fund were replaced by the Church Commissioners for England
- registration number — number on vehicle licence plate
- relational database — an electronic database comprising multiple files of related information, usually stored in tables of rows (records) and columns (fields), and allowing a link to be established between separate files that have a matching field, as a column of invoice numbers, so that the two files can be queried simultaneously by the user.
- removable hard disk — (storage) A type of magnetic disk, or possibly magneto-optical disk which is not permanently attached to the disk drive (not a fixed disk) but which can be taken out and replaced, allowing many disks to be used in the same drive. The term "removable disk" would seem to be applicable to floppy disks but is generally reserved for hard disks in suitable cartridges such as those made by Syquest, Iomega and others. Removable disk packs were common on minicomputers such as the PDP-11 in use in the 1970s except that the drives were the size of washing machines and the disk packs as big as car wheels. Removable disks became popular on microcomputers in the 1990s as a cheap way of expanding disk space, transporting large amounts of data between computers and storing backups. Large, cheap fixed hard disks and USB memory sticks have made removable disks less attractive.