18-letter words containing b, e, r, i
- cerebral dominance — the normal tendency for one half of the brain, usually the left cerebral hemisphere in right-handed people, to exercise more control over certain functions (e.g. handedness and language) than the other
- chambered nautilus — nautilus (def 1).
- character-building — improving certain good or useful traits in a person's character, esp self-reliance, endurance, and courage
- chinese gooseberry — kiwi (sense 2)
- christian brethren — Brother of the Christian Schools.
- christian brothers — a religious congregation of laymen founded in France in 1684 for the education of the poor
- circular breathing — a technique for sustaining a phrase on a wind instrument, using the cheeks to force air out of the mouth while breathing in through the nose
- clay-colored robin — any of several small Old World birds having a red or reddish breast, especially Erithacus rubecula, of Europe.
- climbing hydrangea — a woody vine, Hydrangea anomala, of eastern Asia, having shiny, egg-shaped leaves and flat-topped white flower clusters, and climbing by aerial rootlets.
- clobbering machine — pressure to conform with accepted standards
- comb-footed spider — any of numerous spiders constituting the family Theridiidae, having a comblike row of bristles on the tarsi of the hind legs.
- combination square — an adjustable device for carpenters, used as a try square, miter square, level, etc.
- combined operation — a military operation carried out jointly by allied forces
- combustion chamber — an enclosed space in which combustion takes place, such as the space above the piston in the cylinder head of an internal-combustion engine or the chambers in a gas turbine or rocket engine in which fuel and oxidant burn
- combustion furnace — a furnace used in the laboratory to carry out elemental analysis of organic compounds
- composition rubber — manufactured rubber
- comprehensibleness — The quality of being comprehensible; comprehensibility.
- controllable-pitch — (of a marine or aircraft propeller) having blades whose pitch can be changed during navigation or flight; variable-pitch.
- credibility rating — a supposed measure of how far a person can be believed or trusted
- creme de framboise — a liqueur flavored with raspberries.
- de bruijn notation — (language) A variation of lambda notation for specifying functions using numbers instead of names to refer to formal parameters. A reference to a formal parameter is a number which gives the number of lambdas (written as \ here) between the reference and the lambda which binds the parameter. E.g. the function \ f . \ x . f x would be written \ . \ . 1 0. The 0 refers to the innermost lambda, the 1 to the next etc. The chief advantage of this notation is that it avoids the possibility of name capture and removes the need for alpha conversion.
- debt restructuring — Debt restructuring is a method of organizing a company's debts in a different way in order to make the company more likely to be able to pay them.
- decachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) The fully chlorinated polychlorinated biphenyl containing ten chlorine atoms.
- deferred liability — income received in advance and carried forward as a liability until the associated goods, services, or benefits are delivered
- dependent variable — a variable in a mathematical equation or statement whose value depends on that taken on by the independent variable
- depository library — a library designated by law to receive without charge all or a selection of the official publications of a government.
- devil's paintbrush — a perennial European hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) with leafless flower stalks bearing a cluster of orange-red heads: now a common weed in N U.S. and Canada
- diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
- diethylstilbestrol — a nonsteroidal synthetic estrogen, C 18 H 20 O 2 , used in medicine chiefly in the treatment of menopausal symptoms and in animal feeds for chemical caponization: formerly used during pregnancy for the prevention of miscarriage but discontinued owing to its association with an increased risk of vaginal and cervical cancers in women having had fetal exposure. Abbreviation: DES.
- dispersible tablet — A dispersible tablet is a tablet that disintegrates in water or other liquid.
- distributed eiffel — ["Distributed Eiffel: A Language for Programming Multi-Granular Distributed Objects on the Clouds Operating System", L. Gunaseelan et al, IEEE Conf Comp Langs, 1992].
- distributed memory — (architecture) The kind of memory in a parallel processor where each processor has fast access to its own local memory and where to access another processor's memory it must send a message via the inter-processor network. Opposite: shared memory.
- distributed system — A collection of (probably heterogeneous) automata whose distribution is transparent to the user so that the system appears as one local machine. This is in contrast to a network, where the user is aware that there are several machines, and their location, storage replication, load balancing and functionality is not transparent. Distributed systems usually use some kind of client-server organisation. Distributed systems are considered by some to be the "next wave" of computing.
- distribution curve — the curve or line of a graph in which cumulative frequencies are plotted as ordinates and values of the variate as abscissas.
- dominican republic — a republic in the West Indies, occupying the E part of the island of Hispaniola. 19,129 sq. mi. (49,545 sq. km). Capital: Santo Domingo.
- dressing table set — a set including a hairbrush, mirror and comb, often with silver backs
- dried-fruit beetle — a small beetle, Carpophilus hemipterus, of worldwide distribution, that infests ripe, dried, and fermenting fruits, especially figs and dates.
- drop in the bucket — a deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semicircular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit, etc.; pail.
- eclipsing variable — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
- electronic banking — the transfer of money between financial institutions through an exchange of electronic signals over a network
- electronic mailbox — a device used to store electronic mail
- elizabeth petrovna — 1709-62; empress of Russia (1741-62): daughter of Peter I
- embryonic membrane — any of several living membranes enclosing or closely associated with the developing vertebrate embryo, as the allantois, amnion, yolk sac, etc.
- epstein-barr virus — a virus belonging to the herpes family that causes infectious mononucleosis; it is also implicated in the development of Burkitt's lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease
- established church — a Church that is officially recognized as a national institution, esp the Church of England
- establishmentarian — Adhering to, advocating, or relating to the principle of an established church.
- exclusive brethren — one of the two main divisions of the Plymouth Brethren, which, in contrast to the Open Brethren, restricts its members' contacts with those outside the sect
- fabric conditioner — a product used when washing clothes to make them feel softer
- file control block — (operating system) (FCB) An MS-DOS data structure that stores information about an open file. The number of FCBs is configured in CONFIG.SYS with a command FCBS=x,y where x (between 1 and 255 inclusive, default 4) specifies the number of file control blocks to allocate and therefore the number of files that MS-DOS can have open at one time. y (not needed from DOS 5.0 onward) specifies the number of files to be closed automatically if all x are in use.
- fire and brimstone — When people talk about fire and brimstone, they are referring to hell and how they think people are punished there after death.