21-letter words containing b, i, s, n
- distribution function — (of any random variable) the function that assigns to each number the probability that the random variable takes a value less than or equal to the given number.
- double predestination — the doctrine that God has foreordained both those who will be saved and those who will be damned.
- double spanish burton — a tackle having one standing block and two running blocks, giving a mechanical advantage of five, neglecting friction.
- duccio di buoninsegna — c1255–1319? Italian painter.
- electronic publishing — Electronic publishing is the publishing of documents in a form that can be read on a computer, for example as a CD-ROM.
- empire state building — New York City skyscraper
- extensible vax editor — (text, tool) (EVE) A DEC product implemented using DEC's Text Processing Utility (TPU).
- faisal ibn abdul aziz — 1905–75, king of Saudi Arabia (1964–75)
- first baron ashburton — Alexander, 1st Baron Ashburton, 1774–1848, British statesman.
- flip someone the bird — give someone the finger (see phrase under finger)
- for someone's benefit — something that is advantageous or good; an advantage: He explained the benefits of public ownership of the postal system.
- for the benefit of sb — If you say that someone is doing something for the benefit of a particular person, you mean that they are doing it for that person.
- franco-belgian system — French system.
- friends with benefits — friends who have a casual sexual relationship with no expectation of commitment
- gaussian distribution — normal distribution
- give sb a green light — If someone in authority gives you a green light, they give you permission to do something.
- give sb the runaround — If someone gives you the runaround, they deliberately do not give you all the information or help that you want, and send you to another person or place to get it.
- give someone the best — to concede someone's superiority
- give someone the bird — to tell someone rudely to depart; scoff at; hiss
- go (in) to bat for sb — If you go to bat for someone or go in to bat for them, you give them your support.
- gobject introspection — (programming) A GNOME project that defines a syntax for introspection annotation pragmas to be used in the GObject library source code. Rather than actual introspection, these are intended to allow automatic generation of bindings (APIs) to expose the library to higher-level languages. The sort of information provided is the type and direction (in, out, inout) of function parameters and the responsibility for freeing memory used by data structures.
- gold bullion standard — a gold standard in which gold is not coined but may be purchased at a fixed price for foreign exchange.
- greenwich observatory — the national astronomical observatory of Great Britain, housed in a castle in E Sussex; formerly located at Greenwich.
- hindu-arabic numerals — Arabic numeral.
- horizontal stabilizer — the horizontal surface, usually fixed, of an aircraft empennage, to which the elevator is hinged.
- hubble classification — a method of classifying galaxies depending on whether they are elliptical, spiral, barred spiral, or irregular
- ibm customer engineer — (job) (CE) A hardware guy from IBM.
- illinois bundleflower — a warm-season perennial, Desmanthus illinoensis, having small brown legumes and fernlike leaves, native to North American prairies, glades, and pastures.
- in bad/good/etc taste — If you say that something that is said or done is in bad taste or in poor taste, you mean that it is offensive, often because it concerns death or sex and is inappropriate for the situation. If you say that something is in good taste, you mean that it is not offensive and that it is appropriate for the situation.
- integer specbaseratio — SPECbase_int92
- intersubstitutability — a person or thing acting or serving in place of another.
- irish republican army — an underground Irish nationalist organization founded to work for Irish independence from Great Britain: declared illegal by the Irish government in 1936, but continues activity aimed at the unification of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Abbreviation: IRA, I.R.A.
- johann sebastian bach — Johann Sebastian [yoh-hahn si-bas-chuh n;; German yoh-hahn zey-bahs-tee-ahn] /ˈyoʊ hɑn sɪˈbæs tʃən;; German ˈyoʊ hɑn zeɪˈbɑs tiˌɑn/ (Show IPA), 1685–1750, German organist and composer.
- just a bunch of disks — (jargon, storage) (JBOD, or "Just a Bunch of Drives") A storage subsystems using multiple independent disk drives, as opposed to one form of RAID or another. For example, Unisys open storage provides JBOD in both SCSI and fibre channel interfaces.
- keyboard send receive — (hardware) (KSR) Part of a designation for a hard-copy terminal, manufactured by Teletype Corporation. The KSR range were lower cost versions of the ASR models.
- knights of st columba — an international, semi-secret fraternal and charitable order for Catholic laymen, which originated in New Haven, Connecticut in 1882 (the Knights of Columbus)
- know someone by sight — If you know someone by sight, you can recognize them when you see them, although you have never met them and talked to them.
- language-based editor — language-sensitive editor
- least significant bit — (data) (LSB) Bit zero, the bit of a binary number giving the number of ones, the last or rightmost bit when the number is written in the usual way.
- leave sb in the lurch — If someone leaves you in the lurch, they go away or stop helping you at a very difficult time.
- long-term liabilities — Long-term liabilities are debts that a company does not have to pay back for a year or more.
- luck was on sb's side — If you say that luck was on someone's side, you mean that they succeeded in something by chance as well as by their own efforts or ability.
- make one's blood boil — the fluid that circulates in the principal vascular system of human beings and other vertebrates, in humans consisting of plasma in which the red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets are suspended.
- megaloblastic anaemia — any anaemia, esp pernicious anaemia, characterized by the presence of megaloblasts in the blood or bone marrow
- national savings bank — (in Britain) a government savings bank, run through the post office, esp for small savers
- negotiable instrument — order or promise to pay money
- negotiable securities — securities that are legally transferable in title from one party to another
- nellis air force base — the largest air base in the U.S. Air Force's Tactical Air Command, located near Las Vegas, Nev., and developed from what began in 1941 as a U.S. Army Air Corps field.
- night-blooming cereus — any of various cacti of the genera Hylocereus, Peniocereus, Nyctocereus, or Selenicereus, having large, usually white flowers that open at night.
- northumberland strait — the part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence that separates Prince Edward Island from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in SE Canada. About 200 miles (320 km) long; 9–30 miles (15–48 km) wide.