12-letter words containing b, l, a, s
- brittle-star — any echinoderm of the class Ophiuroidea, occurring on the sea bottom and having five long slender arms radiating from a small central disc
- brooks's law — (programming) "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" - a result of the fact that the expected advantage from splitting work among N programmers is O(N) (that is, proportional to N), but the complexity and communications cost associated with coordinating and then merging their work is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the square of N). The quote is from Fred Brooks, a manager of IBM's OS/360 project and author of "The Mythical Man-Month". The myth in question has been most tersely expressed as "Programmer time is fungible" and Brooks established conclusively that it is not. Hackers have never forgotten his advice; too often, management still does. See also creationism, second-system effect, optimism.
- brushability — the quality of being brushable
- buffalo fish — any of a genus (Ictiobus) of large, humpbacked, freshwater sucker fishes found in North America
- buffel grass — grass used for pasture in Africa, India, and Australia
- bull mastiff — a large powerful breed of dog with a short usually fawn or brindle coat, developed by crossing the bulldog with the mastiff
- burro's tail — a succulent Mexican plant, Sedum morganianum, of the stonecrop family, bearing small, rose-colored flowers and long, hanging, nearly cylindrical stems with closely packed whitish-green leaves.
- bush leaguer — Also called busher. Baseball. a player in a minor league. an incompetent player, as one who behaves or plays as if he or she belonged in a minor league.
- bush-leaguer — (in baseball) someone who plays in a minor league
- bushelbasket — a rounded basket with a capacity of one bushel
- bushy-tailed — bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, fresh, alert, eager, and lively
- by all means — You can say 'by all means' to tell someone that you are very willing to allow them to do something.
- by the balls — so as to be rendered powerless
- by wholesale — at wholesale
- byelorussian — Byelorussian means belonging or relating to Byelorussia or to its people or culture.
- cabalistical — cabalistic
- cable stitch — a pattern or series of knitting stitches producing a design like a twisted rope
- cable-stitch — a series of stitches used in knitting to produce a cable effect.
- cablecasting — relating to broadcasting by cable
- cactoblastis — a moth, Cactoblastis cactorum of South America, that was introduced into Australia to act as a biological control on the prickly pear
- calabrasella — a card game for three persons that is played with a 40-card pack made by removing the eights, nines, and tens from a regular 52-card pack.
- calibrations — Plural form of calibration.
- cannibalised — Simple past tense and past participle of cannibalise.
- cannibalizes — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of cannibalize.
- capabilities — the quality of being capable; capacity; ability: His capability was unquestionable.
- carbon steel — steel whose characteristics are determined by the amount of carbon it contains
- carnal abuse — Law. any lascivious contact with the sexual organs of a child by an adult, especially without sexual intercourse.
- cassel brown — Vandyke brown.
- celebrations — Plural form of celebration.
- celebutantes — Plural form of celebutante.
- chamberlains — Plural form of chamberlain.
- channel bass — red drum.
- charlesbourg — city in S Quebec, Canada: pop. 71,000
- child abuser — someone who abuses a child, esp someone convicted of this
- chondroblast — a type of cell that develops into a chondrocyte or cartilage cell
- class b drug — (in Britain) any of the second most dangerous group of controlled drugs, including amphetamine
- class object — (programming) In object-oriented programming, an object of class "class" that represents a class at run time. The existence of class objects allows introspection - the ability for a program to discover and modify attributes of its own code. (See self-modifying code). A class object may also be used for "housekeeping" tasks like keeping count of how many objects of the class have been created, though this may also be done by some kind of collection object. A class method is a method that operates on class objects.
- classifiable — to arrange or organize by classes; order according to class.
- close combat — the act of fighting at close quarters
- colacobiosis — (among social insects) life in which one species lives as a parasite in the community of another species.
- collaborates — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of collaborate.
- collectables — capable of being collected.
- collembolans — Plural form of collembolan.
- columbus day — Oct 12, a legal holiday in most states of the US: the date of Columbus' landing in the West Indies (Caribbean) in 1492
- comfortables — Plural form of comfortable.
- commiserable — worthy of commiseration; pitiable
- connubialism — the state of being married
- conscionable — acceptable to one's conscience
- conscionably — being in conformity with one's conscience; just.
- considerable — Considerable means great in amount or degree.