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18-letter words containing b, i, o, n

  • bill of indictment — a formal document accusing a person or persons of crime, formerly presented to a grand jury for certification as a true bill but now signed by a court official
  • bill of quantities — a document drawn up by a quantity surveyor providing details of the prices, dimensions, etc, of the materials required to build a large structure, such as a factory
  • biodiversification — the process by which the diversity of plants or animals develops or is increased within a particular region or group of organisms.
  • bioinstrumentation — the use of instruments, as sensors, to detect and measure certain body functions, as of persons in spaceflight, and transmit the data to a point where it is evaluated
  • biological control — the control of destructive organisms by the use of other organisms, such as the natural predators of the pests
  • biological parents — the biological mother and father of a child
  • bipolar transistor — (electronics)   A transistor made from a sandwich of n- and p-type semiconductor material: either npn or pnp. The middle section is known as the "base" and the other two as the "collector" and "emitter". When used as an amplifying element, the base to emitter junction is in a "forward-biased" (conducting) condition, and the base to collector junction is "reverse-biased" or non-conducting. Small changes in the base to emitter current (the input signal) cause either holes (for pnp devices) or free electrons (for npn) to enter the base from the emitter. The attracting voltage of the collector causes the majority of these charges to cross into and be collected by the collector, resulting in amplification. Contrast field effect transistor.
  • bird's-nest orchid — a brown parasitic Eurasian orchid, Neottia nidus-avis, whose thick fleshy roots resemble a bird's nest and contain a fungus on which the orchid feeds
  • birth control pill — an oral contraceptive for women, containing the hormones estrogen and progesterone or progesterone alone, that inhibits ovulation, fertilization, or implantation of a fertilized ovum, causing temporary infertility.
  • birth-control pill — an oral contraceptive for women, containing the hormones estrogen and progesterone or progesterone alone, that inhibits ovulation, fertilization, or implantation of a fertilized ovum, causing temporary infertility.
  • bitwise complement — The bitwise complement of a bit field is a bit field of the same length but with each zero changed to a one and vice versa. This is the same as the ones complement of a binary integer.
  • black nickel oxide — a gray-black, water-insoluble powder, Ni 2 O 3 , which, at 600°C, decomposes to nickel oxide: used chiefly in storage batteries as an oxidizing agent.
  • blanche of castile — ?1188–1252, queen consort (1223–26) of Louis VIII of France, born in Spain. The mother of Louis IX, she acted as regent during his minority (1226–36) and his absence on a crusade (1248–52)
  • blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
  • blocking capacitor — a capacitor that blocks the passage of direct current but allows alternating current to pass
  • bloodbrain barrier — a layer of tightly packed cells that make up the walls of brain capillaries and prevent substances in the blood from diffusing freely into the brain: passage across the cell membranes is determined by solubility in the lipid bilayer or recognition by a transport molecule.
  • board of education — a group or agency with responsibility for education
  • board of elections — a bipartisan board appointed usually by local authorities and charged with control of elections and voting procedure.
  • board of examiners — a group of people who officially administer examinations
  • bomb disposal unit — a unit of the police or armed services specializing in bomb disposal
  • bone of contention — If a particular matter or issue is a bone of contention, it is the subject of a disagreement or argument.
  • boole's inequality — the theorem that the probability of several events occurring is less than or equal to the sum of the probabilities of each event occurring.
  • bosnia-herzegovina — a country in SE Europe; a constituent republic of Yugoslavia until 1991; in a state of civil war (1992–95); Serbian and Croatian forces were also involved: mostly barren and mountainous, with forests in the east. Languages: Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian (formerly all regarded together as Serbo-Croat). Religion: Muslim, Serbian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic. Currency: marka (pegged to the euro). Capital: Sarajevo. Pop: 3 875 723 (2013 est). Area: 51 129 sq km (19 737 sq miles)
  • bottlenose dolphin — any dolphin of the genus Tursiops, esp T. truncatus, some of which have been kept in captivity and trained to perform tricks
  • bottom-of-the-line — being the cheapest item of its kind made by a manufacturer; produced as inexpensively as possible (opposed to top-of-the-line): bottom-of-the-line merchandise that has no warranty.
  • boulogne-sur-seine — an industrial suburb of SW Paris. Pop: 106 367 (1999)
  • boundary condition — a stated restriction, usually in the form of an equation, that limits the possible solutions to a differential equation.
  • branch instruction — a machine-language or assembly-language instruction that causes the computer to branch to another instruction
  • branch to fishkill — (IBM: from the location of one of the corporation's facilities) Any unexpected jump in a program that produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See jump off into never-never land, hyperspace.
  • branching fraction — (in branching) the proportion of the disintegrating nuclei that follow a particular branch to the total number of disintegrating nuclides
  • brazilian rosewood — a Brazilian tree, Dalbergia nigra, of the legume family.
  • break your silence — If someone breaks their silence about something, they talk about something that they have not talked about before or for a long time.
  • brightness control — a control that enables the brightness of the image on a television screen, computer monitor, etc to be adjusted
  • bring someone luck — If you say that something brings bad luck or brings someone good luck, you believe that it has an influence on whether good or bad things happen to them.
  • bring to its knees — If a country or organization is brought to its knees, it is almost completely destroyed by someone or something.
  • briquet's syndrome — somatization disorder.
  • british somaliland — a former British protectorate (1884–1960) in E Africa, on the Gulf of Aden: united with Italian Somaliland in 1960 to form Somalia (or the Somali Republic); in 1991 the self-styled republic of Somaliland, covering the same area as the former British Somaliland, declared itself independent and continues to function largely as a separate entity, though without international recognition
  • broadcasting house — any of a number of buildings in the UK from which the BBC broadcasts or has broadcast
  • broken twill weave — a twill weave in which the direction of the diagonal produced by the weft threads is reversed after no more than two passages of the weft.
  • bronchocandidiasis — See under candidiasis.
  • burn one's bridges — If you burn your bridges, you do something which forces you to continue with a particular course of action, and makes it impossible for you to return to an earlier situation or relationship.
  • burn one's fingers — to suffer from having meddled or been rash
  • burrell collection — a gallery in Glasgow, noted for its collection of paintings, textiles, furniture, ceramics, etc
  • business education — education for general knowledge of business practices.
  • cabernet sauvignon — a black grape originally grown in the Bordeaux area of France, and now throughout the wine-producing world
  • cabinet government — parliamentary government.
  • california rosebay — a Pacific coast shrub or tree (Rhododendron californicum) of the heath family, with rosy or purplish flowers
  • cambrian mountains — a mountain range in Wales, extending from Carmarthenshire in the S to Denbighshire in the N. Highest peak: Aran Fawddwy, 891 m (2970 ft)
  • cape breton island — an island off SE Canada, in NE Nova Scotia, separated from the mainland by the Strait of Canso: its easternmost point is Cape Breton. Pop: 132 298 (2006). Area: 10 280 sq km (3970 sq miles)
  • carbonic anhydrase — an enzyme in blood cells that catalyses the decomposition of carbonic acid into carbon dioxide and water, facilitating the transport of carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs
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