14-letter words containing b, e, t, m
- bethlehem sage — a plant, Pulmonaria saccharata, of the borage family, native to Europe, having mottled, white leaves and white or reddish-purple flowers in clusters.
- betterment tax — a tax on an increase in the value of property effected by improvement
- bible-thumping — an evangelist or other person who quotes the Bible frequently, especially as a means of exhortation or rebuke.
- bide sb's time — If you bide your time, you wait for a good opportunity before doing something.
- bidialectalism — the state of being bidialectal
- big brotherism — paternalistic authoritarianism that seeks to supply the needs and regulate the conduct of people.
- big government — a form of government characterized by high taxation and public spending and centralization of political power
- billy no-mates — a person with no friends
- biocontainment — the confinement, as by sealed-off chambers, of materials that are harmful or potentially harmful to life.
- bioluminescent — the production of light by living organisms.
- biomathematics — the study of the application of mathematics to biology
- biometeorology — the study of the effect of weather conditions on living organisms
- biometric risk — Biometric risk covers all risks related to human life conditions, such as death, birth, disability, age, and number of children.
- bioremediation — the use of plants to extract heavy metals from contaminated soils and water
- biosystematics — the study of the variation and evolution of a population of organisms in relation to their taxonomic classification
- biosystematist — someone who studies or works professionally in the field of biosystematics
- bishop's mitre — a European heteropterous bug, Aelia acuminata, whose larvae are a pest of cereal grasses: family Pentatomidae
- bladder ketmia — plant with pale yellow flowers
- bladder ketmie — flower-of-an-hour
- blantyre-limbe — a city in S Malawi: largest city in the country; formed in 1956 from the adjoining towns of Blantyre and Limbe. Pop: 647 000 (2005 est)
- blow off steam — water in the form of an invisible gas or vapor.
- blue mountains — a mountain range in the US, in NE Oregon and SE Washington. Highest peak: Rock Creek Butte, 2773 m (9097 ft)
- bornyl formate — a liquid, C 11 H 18 O 2 , having a piny odor, used chiefly as a scent in the manufacture of soaps and disinfectants.
- bottom-feeding — the activities of a bottom feeder.
- bottomless pit — If you describe a supply of something as bottomless, you mean that it seems so large that it will never run out.
- bottomlessness — the quality of being very deep or bottomless
- bouleversement — an overthrow or reversal; violent turmoil
- bound moisture — Bound moisture is liquid in a solid, which exerts a vapor pressure that is less than the pure liquid would do at the same temperature.
- bowel movement — the discharge of faeces; defecation
- bowstring hemp — a hemplike fibre obtained from the sansevieria
- boxed comments — (programming) Comments that occupy several lines by themselves; so called because in assembler and C code they are often surrounded by a box in a style similar to this: /************************************************* * * This is a boxed comment in C style * *************************************************/ Common variants of this style omit the asterisks in column 2 or add a matching row of asterisks closing the right side of the box. The sparest variant omits all but the comment delimiters themselves; the "box" is implied. Opposite of winged comments.
- boy-meets-girl — conventionally or trivially romantic
- break the mold — If you say that someone breaks the mold, you mean that they do completely different things from what has been done before or from what is usually done.
- breakfast room — a room set aside for serving and eating breakfast, esp in a hotel or guesthouse
- breakfast time — Breakfast time is the period of the morning when most people have their breakfast.
- breast implant — an object such as a sachet filled with gel introduced surgically into a woman's breast to enlarge it
- bremsstrahlung — the radiation produced when an electrically charged particle, esp an electron, is slowed down by the electric field of an atomic nucleus or an atomic ion
- bring onstream — To bring onstream a plant, mine, oilfield, etc. is to start production there.
- bring sth home — To bring something home to someone means to make them understand how important or serious it is.
- bring to terms — to reduce to submission; force to agree
- british empire — (formerly) the United Kingdom and the territories under its control, which reached its greatest extent at the end of World War I when it embraced over a quarter of the world's population and more than a quarter of the world's land surface
- british museum — a museum in London, founded in 1753: contains one of the world's richest collections of antiquities and (until 1997) most of the British Library
- broad-spectrum — effective against a wide variety of diseases or microorganisms
- brown stem rot — a disease of soybeans, characterized by brown discoloration and decay of internal tissues of the stem and leaf, caused by a fungus, Cephalosporium gregatum.
- bug-compatible — Said of a design or revision that has been badly compromised by a requirement to be compatible with fossils or misfeatures in other programs or (especially) previous releases of itself. "MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path separator to be bug-compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an option character in 1.0."
- bumper sticker — A bumper sticker is a small piece of paper or plastic with words or pictures on it, designed for sticking onto the back of your car. It usually has a political, religious, or humorous message.
- buteyko method — a breath control technique used to prevent hyperventilation and treat asthma without drugs
- butterfly bomb — Military. a small, aerial, antipersonnel bomb with two folding wings that revolve, slowing the rate of descent and arming the fuze.
- buttermilk sky — a cloudy sky resembling the mottled or clabbered appearance of buttermilk.
- buyer's market — When there is a buyer's market for a particular product, there are more of the products for sale than there are people who want to buy them, so buyers have a lot of choice and can make prices come down.