12-letter words containing b, e, s
- bell bottoms — Also, bell-bottomed. (of trousers) wide and flaring at the bottoms of the legs.
- bell gardens — a town in SW California, near Los Angeles.
- bell housing — A bell housing is a bell-shaped extension of an engine crankcase, that contains the flywheel and the clutch.
- bell's palsy — a usually temporary paralysis of the muscles of the face, normally on one side
- bell-bottoms — Bell-bottoms are trousers that are very wide at the bottom of the leg, near your feet.
- belligerents — warlike; given to waging war.
- bellows fish — snipefish.
- belly-buster — belly flop.
- below stairs — People sometimes use below stairs to refer to the servants in a rich household and the things that are connected with them.
- belteshazzar — the Babylonian name given to Daniel. Dan. 1:7.
- benefactress — a female benefactor
- benumbedness — the condition of being benumbed
- bernese alps — a mountain range in SW Switzerland, the N central part of the Alps. Highest peak: Finsteraarhorn, 4274 m (14 022 ft)
- bernina alps — a mountain group in SE Switzerland, extending from the Rhateian Alps on the Italian border. Highest peak, Piz Bernina, 13,304 feet (4055 meters).
- bernina pass — a pass in the Alps between SE Switzerland and N Italy, east of Piz Bernina. Height: 2323 m (7622 ft)
- berwickshire — (until 1975) a county of SE Scotland: part of the Borders region from 1975 to 1996, now part of Scottish Borders council area
- beseechingly — to implore urgently: They besought him to go at once.
- besom pocket — an interior pocket with edging or stitching around the opening.
- besottedness — the state of being besotted
- bespectacled — Someone who is bespectacled is wearing glasses.
- best in show — an award to the dog, cat, or other animal judged best of all breeds in a competition.
- best-selling — A best-selling product such as a book is very popular and a large quantity of it has been sold.
- beta orionis — Rigel
- beta testing — (programming) Evaluation of a pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software (or possibly hardware) by making it available to selected users ("beta testers") before it goes on general distribution. Beta testign aims to discover bugs that only occur in certain environments or under certain patterns of use, while reducing the volume of feedback to a manageable level. The testers benefit by having earlier access to new products, features and fixes. Beta testing may be preceded by "alpha testing", performed in-house by a handful of users (e.g. other developers or friends), who can be expected to give rapid, high quality feedback on design and usability. Once the product is considered to be usable for its intended purpose it then moves on to "beta testing" by a larger, but typically still limited, number of ordinary users, who may include external customers. Some companies such as Google or Degree Jungle stretch the definition, claiming their products are "in beta" for many months by millions of users. The term derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout the industry. "Alpha test" was the unit test, module test or component test phase; "Beta Test" was initial system test. These themselves came from earlier A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a feasibility and manufacturability evaluation done before any commitment to design and development. The B-test was a demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified. The C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed on early samples of the production design.
- beta version — beta testing
- beth midrash — a place where Jews gather to study the Talmud and other religious writings; a small synagogue.
- beth shammai — the school of Jewish legal thought and hermeneutics founded in Jerusalem in the 1st century b.c. by the Jewish teacher Shammai and characterized by an austere or rigid interpretation of Jewish law and tradition.
- betting news — the news of the latest odds on winners of matches, races and competitions
- betting shop — A betting shop is a place where people can go to bet on something such as a horse race.
- betting slip — a piece of paper used to place a bet
- betweentimes — between other activities; during intervals
- betws-y-coed — a village in N Wales, in Conwy county borough, on the River Conwy: noted for its scenery. Pop: 534 (2001)
- bevel siding — siding composed of tapered pieces, as clapboards, laid with the thicker lower edge of any piece overlapping the thinner upper edge of the piece below it.
- bevel square — a woodworker's square with an adjustable arm that can be set to mark out an angle or to check the slope of a surface
- bhubaneshwar — a state in E India. 60,136 sq. mi. (155,752 sq. km). Capital: Bhubaneshwar.
- bib overalls — overall (def 3a).
- bible school — a school or study program devoted to Bible study, esp at a church
- bibliopegist — a bookbinder
- bicameralism — having two branches, chambers, or houses, as a legislative body.
- bichon frise — a small white poodle-like dog of European origin, with a silky, loosely curling coat
- bicycle shed — a shed for bicycle storage
- bicycle shop — a shop that sells and usually repairs bicycles and bicycle parts
- bidialectism — proficient in or using two dialects of the same language.
- bien pensant — a right-thinking person
- big business — Big business is business which involves very large companies and very large sums of money.
- bilateralism — the practice of being bilateral
- bill of sale — a deed transferring personal property, either outright or as security for a loan or debt
- billingsgate — the largest fish market in London, on the N bank of the River Thames; moved to new site at Canary Wharf in 1982 and the former building converted into offices
- bindle stiff — a hobo.
- bio-security — the precautions taken to protect against the spread of lethal or harmful organisms and diseases