17-letter words containing b, e, p, a
- combe-capelle man — a skeleton of the early Upper Paleolithic Perigordian culture in France.
- companionableness — The state or quality of being companionable.
- culpable homicide — manslaughter
- cyrillic alphabet — the alphabet derived from that of the Greeks, supposedly by Saint Cyril, for the writing of Slavonic languages: now used primarily for Russian, Bulgarian, and the Serbian dialect of Serbo-Croat
- 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)
- debrett's peerage — a list of the British aristocracy
- dibutyl phthalate — a colorless oily liquid, C 16 H 22 O 4 , insoluble in water, used as a solvent, insect repellent, and plasticizer.
- disposable income — the part of a person's income remaining after deducting personal income taxes.
- disrespectability — Lack of respectability.
- 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 pair royal — a set of four cards of the same denomination, worth 12 points.
- 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.
- fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
- get one's back up — the rear part of the human body, extending from the neck to the lower end of the spine.
- go back to the pa — to abandon city life in favour of rural life
- golf ball printer — IBM 2741
- haemoglobinopathy — (medicine) Any of a group of inherited disorders in which haemoglobin does not function properly.
- half-breadth plan — a diagrammatic plan of one half of the hull of a vessel divided lengthwise amidships, showing water lines, stations, diagonals, and bow and buttock lines.
- hepatitis b virus — a form of hepatitis caused by a DNA virus (hepatitis B virus, or HBV) that persists in the blood, characterized by a long incubation period: usually transmitted by sexual contact or by injection or ingestion of infected blood or other bodily fluids.
- humpbacked bridge — A humpbacked bridge or humpback bridge is a short and very curved bridge with a shape similar to a semi-circle.
- hyperbolic secant — a hyperbolic function that is the reciprocal of cosh; sech
- hyperbolic spiral — rθ = a, (where a is a constant)
- hyperexcitability — an excessive reaction to stimuli.
- hyperirritability — extreme irritability.
- i beg your pardon — You say 'Pardon?' or 'I beg your pardon?' or, in American English, 'Pardon me?' when you want someone to repeat what they have just said because you have not heard or understood it.
- iambic pentameter — a verse line consisting of five metrical iambs
- iberian peninsula — Also called Iberian Peninsula. a peninsula in SW Europe, comprising Spain and Portugal.
- impracticableness — The state of being impracticable; impracticability.
- impressionability — easily impressed or influenced; susceptible: an impressionable youngster.
- incompatibilities — not compatible; unable to exist together in harmony: She asked for a divorce because they were utterly incompatible.
- incubation period — the period between infection and the appearance of signs of a disease.
- indecipherability — Quality of being indecipherable.
- indispensableness — The characteristic of being indispensable; indispensability.
- insupportableness — The state of being insupportable; insufferableness.
- intestinal bypass — the surgical circumvention, by anastomosis, of a diseased portion of the intestine; also sometimes used to reduce nutrient absorption in morbidly obese patients.
- japanese barberry — a thorny barberry, Berberis thunbergii, of Japan, having yellow flowers and bearing bright-red fruit, grown as a hedge plant.
- job specification — a detailed description of the qualifications, skills, and experience required for a particular post of employment
- jump trace buffer — (JTB) A feature of some pipelined processors (e.g. Amulet, Pentium?) which stores the source and destination addresses of the last few branch instuctions executed. When a branch instruction is fetched, its source is looked for in the JTB. If found, the next instuction fetch will be from the previous destination of that branch. If it turns out that the branch shouldn't have been taken this time, then the pipeline is flushed. This means that in a tight loop it is not necessary to flush the pipeline every time you jump back to the start.
- karelian republic — a constituent republic of NW Russia between the White Sea and Lakes Onega and Ladoga. Capital: Petrozavodsk. Pop: 716 700 (2002). Area: 172 400 sq km (66 560 sq miles)
- keep your balance — If you keep your balance, for example when standing in a moving vehicle, you remain steady and do not fall over. If you lose your balance, you become unsteady and fall over.
- lambda expression — (mathematics) A term in the lambda-calculus denoting an unnamed function (a "lambda abstraction"), a variable or a constant. The pure lambda-calculus has only functions and no constants.
- least upper bound — an upper bound that is less than or equal to all the upper bounds of a particular set. 3 is the least upper bound of the set consisting of 1, 2, 3. Abbr.: lub.
- ligurian republic — the republic in NW Italy set up by Napoleon in 1797, incorporated into France in 1805, and united with the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1814.
- malagasy republic — former name of Madagascar.
- metabolic pathway — biochemistry: sequence of reactions within a cell or organism
- neath port talbot — a county borough in S Wales, created from part of West Glamorgan in 1996. Administrative centre: Port Talbot. Pop: 135 300 (2003 est). Area: 439 sq km (169 sq miles)
- office by example — (language) (OBE) A sequel to QBE, described in publications by Moshe Zloof of IBM in the early 1980s but apparently never implemented.
- on the pig's back — successful; established
- opisthobranchiate — (zoology) Of or pertaining to the Opisthobranchiata.
- oregon crab apple — a shrub or small tree, Malus fusca, of the rose family, of the northwestern coast of North America, having hairy leaves, white flowers, and yellow or green oblong fruit.