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17-letter words containing b, e, t, r

  • base rate fallacy — the tendency, when making judgments of the probability with which an event will occur, to ignore the base rate and to concentrate on other information
  • baseboard heating — a heating system by pipes, through which steam or hot water circulates, near the base of the walls of rooms
  • basement membrane — a thin, extracellular membrane underlying epithelial tissue.
  • basic service set — (networking)   (BSS) A wireless local area network and all the wireless devices (e.g. PCs and laptops) that are associated with it. A BSS may or may not include an access point and is identified by a BSSID.
  • basketball player — someone who plays basketball
  • battle of britain — (in World War II) the series of aerial combats that took place between British and German aircraft during the autumn of 1940 and that included the severe bombardment of British cities.
  • battle-ax culture — a late Neolithic to Copper Age culture of northern Europe marked especially by the production of pottery bearing the imprint of cord and by the use of battle-axes as burial accouterments.
  • bbc microcomputer — A series of 6502-based personal computers launched by Acorn Computers Ltd. in January 1982, for use in the British Broadcasting Corporation's educational programmes on computing. The computers are noted for their reliability (many are still in active service in 1994) and both hardware and software were designed for easy expansion. The 6502-based computers were succeeded in 1987 by the Acorn Archimedes family.
  • be on tenterhooks — If you are on tenterhooks, you are very nervous and excited because you are wondering what is going to happen in a particular situation.
  • be on the rebound — If you say that someone is on the rebound, you mean that they have just ended a relationship with a girlfriend or boyfriend. This often makes them do things they would not normally do.
  • be over the limit — If someone is over the limit, they have drunk more alcohol than they are legally allowed to when driving a vehicle.
  • be sitting pretty — If you say that someone is sitting pretty, you mean that they are in a good, safe, or comfortable position.
  • beat a dead horse — to argue an issue that is already settled
  • beat one's brains — to try hard to remember, understand, or solve something
  • beat one's breast — to display guilt and remorse publicly or ostentatiously
  • beat the drum for — to attempt to arouse interest in
  • bed and breakfast — Bed and breakfast is a system of accommodation in a hotel or guest house, in which you pay for a room for the night and for breakfast the following morning. The abbreviation B&B is also used.
  • bed-and-breakfast — an accommodation offered by an inn, hotel, or especially a private home, consisting of a room for the night and breakfast the next morning for one inclusive price.
  • beer and skittles — enjoyment or pleasure
  • before one's time — prematurely
  • behaviour therapy — any of various means of treating psychological disorders, such as desensitization, aversion therapy, and instrumental conditioning, that depend on the patient systematically learning new modes of behaviour
  • believe it or not — You can use believe it or not to emphasize that what you have just said is surprising.
  • bell laboratories — One of AT&T's research sites, in Murray Hill, New Jersey, USA. It was the birthplace of the transistor, Unix, C and C++ and the current home of research on Plan 9 and ODE.
  • bell-hanger's bit — a bit for drilling small holes through studs or the like.
  • belted kingfisher — a grayish-blue, North American kingfisher, Ceryle alcyon, having a white breast marked with a grayish-blue band.
  • benefit of clergy — sanction by the church
  • benoit mandelbrot — (person)   /ben'wa man'dl-bro/ Benoit B. Mandelbrot. The IBM scientist who wrote several original books on fractals and gave his name to the set he was discovered, the Mandelbrot set and coined the term "fractal" in 1975 from the Latin fractus or "to break".
  • bermuda buttercup — a bulbous plant, Oxalis pescaprae, native to southern Africa, having nodding, yellow flowers.
  • best first search — (algorithm)   A graph search algorithm which optimises breadth first search by ordering all current paths according to some heuristic. The heuristic attempts to predict how close the end of a path is to a solution. Paths which are judged to be closer to a solution are extended first. See also beam search, hill climbing.
  • between ourselves — in confidence; as a secret
  • between two fires — between two attacks; shot at, criticized, etc. from both sides
  • beyond redemption — If you say that someone or something is beyond redemption, you mean that they are so bad it is unlikely that anything can be done to improve them.
  • bicycle motocross — a bicycle race over a rough cross-country course, usually consisting of jumps, obstacles, and turns. Abbreviation: BMX.
  • bill of adventure — a certificate made out by a merchant to show that goods handled by him and his agents are the property of another party at whose risk the dealing is done
  • bill of attainder — (formerly) a legislative act finding a person guilty without trial of treason or felony and declaring him attainted
  • billeting officer — an officer who is responsible for billeting
  • bioelectrogenesis — the production of electricity by organisms.
  • biological father — the man whose semen fertilized the ovum from which a child was born
  • biological mother — the mother who gave birth to a child
  • biological parent — a parent who has conceived (biological mother) or sired (biological father) rather than adopted a child and whose genes are therefore transmitted to the child.
  • biopharmaceutical — of or relating to drugs produced using biotechnology
  • birth certificate — Your birth certificate is an official document which gives details of your birth, such as the date and place of your birth, and the names of your parents.
  • bitter almond oil — almond oil (def 2).
  • bitter-almond-oil — Also called sweet almond oil, expressed almond oil. a colorless to pale yellow fatty oil expressed from the seeds of the sweet almond, used in preparing perfumes and confections.
  • bjarne stroustrup — (person)   The father of C++ and author of the C++ bible.
  • black forest cake — a torte consisting typically of thin layers of chocolate cake spread with alternating layers of chocolate, cherry, and whipped-cream filling and covered with whipped cream
  • black-tailed deer — a variety of mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus columbianus, of the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, having a tail that is black above.
  • black-water fever — a form of babesiosis seen in cattle, deer, bison, water buffalo, African buffalo, and reindeer; characterized by fever, depression, jaundice, dark red-black discolouration of the urine, anaemia, and death
  • blank endorsement — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
  • blessed sacrament — the consecrated elements of the Eucharist
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