16-letter words containing b, l
- duplicate bridge — a form of contract bridge used in tournaments in which contestants play the identical series of deals, with each deal being scored independently, permitting individual scores to be compared.
- east gwillimbury — a town in S Ontario, in S Canada.
- ebony spleenwort — a fern, Asplenium platyneuron, of woody areas of North America, having ladderlike leaves and shiny, dark brown stems.
- eclipsing binary — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
- edinburgh prolog — Prolog dialect which eventually developed into the standard, as opposed to Marseille Prolog. (The difference is largely syntax.) Clocksin & Mellish describe Edinburgh Prolog. Version: C-Prolog.
- el camino bignum — (humour) /el' k*-mee'noh big'nuhm/ The road mundanely called El Camino Real, a road through the San Francisco peninsula that originally extended all the way down to Mexico City and many portions of which are still intact. Navigation on the San Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real, which defines logical north and south even though it isn't really north-south many places. El Camino Real runs right past Stanford University. The Spanish word "real" (which has two syllables: /ray-al'/) means "royal"; El Camino Real is "the royal road". In the Fortran language, a "real" quantity is a number typically precise to seven significant digits, and a "double precision" quantity is a larger floating-point number, precise to perhaps fourteen significant digits (other languages have similar "real" types). When a hacker from MIT visited Stanford in 1976, he remarked what a long road El Camino Real was. Making a pun on "real", he started calling it "El Camino Double Precision" - but when the hacker was told that the road was hundreds of miles long, he renamed it "El Camino Bignum", and that name has stuck. (See bignum).
- elburz mountains — a mountain range in N Iran, parallel to the SW and S shores of the Caspian Sea. Highest peak: Mount Demavend, 5671 m (18 606 ft)
- electric blanket — electrically-heated bedcover
- emotional labour — work that requires good interpersonal skills
- erythroblastosis — A medical condition in which erythroblasts are abnormally found in the blood.
- expansion bottle — a tank collecting coolant from a radiator while an engine is heated, and from which the coolant returns to the radiator when the engine cools
- experience table — an actuarial table, esp a mortality table based on past statistics
- extensible shell — (operating system) (es) A Unix shell written by Byron Rakitzis <[email protected]> and Paul Haahr <[email protected]>, derived from rc. Es has real functions, closures, exceptions and lets you redefine most internal shell operations. Version: 0.84.
- false beechdrops — either of two parasitic or saprophytic plants of the genus Monotropa, especially the tawny or reddish M. hypopithys (false beechdrops) of eastern North America.
- family balancing — the choosing of the sex of a future child on the basis of how many children of each sex a family already has
- fancy dress ball — a ball at which the guests wear fancy dress
- fantasy baseball — imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
- fantasy football — imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
- feeblemindedness — Quality of being feeble-minded; weak intellect.
- feedback control — (electronics) A control system which monitors its effect on the system it is controlling and modifies its output accordingly. For example, a thermostat has two inputs: the desired temperature and the current temperature (the latter is the feedback). The output of the thermostat changes so as to try to equalise the two inputs. Computer disk drives use feedback control to position the read/write heads accurately on a recording track. Complex systems such as the human body contain many feedback systems that interact with each other; the homeostasis mechanisms that control body temperature and acidity are good examples.
- fertility symbol — an object, esp a phallic symbol, used in fertility-cult ceremonies to symbolize regeneration
- fill one's boots — to take or do as much of something as one wants
- filterable virus — a virus particle small enough to pass through a filter of diatomaceous earth or porcelain, which will not pass bacteria: chiefly historical or an informal indicator of size, as synthetic membrane filters now permit passage of the smallest virus.
- fire-tube boiler — any boiler for generating steam by passing hot gases and other combustible products through tubes (fire tubes) immersed in water to a chimney or uptake.
- first balkan war — Balkan War (def 1).
- flabbergastation — (colloquial) Bewildered shock or surprise; the state or condition of being flabbergasted.
- flabbergastingly — Surprisingly, astonishingly or amazingly.
- flamborough head — a chalk promontory in NE England, on the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire
- flashbulb memory — the clear recollections that a person may have of the circumstances associated with a dramatic event
- flat-bed plotter — a mechanized drafting device, usually computer driven, incorporating a moving pen whose horizontal and vertical range in two dimensions is limited only by the size of the bed of the device.
- flat-bed scanner — a type of optical scanner having a flat, stationary surface on which a page is scanned by a moving head.
- flat-track bully — a sportsperson who dominates inferior opposition, but who cannot beat top-level opponents
- flatheaded borer — the larva of a metallic wood-boring beetle, having an expanded and flattened anterior end.
- flibbertigibbets — Plural form of flibbertigibbet.
- flibbertigibbety — Like a flibbertigibbet; flighty; scatterbrained.
- flying ambulance — an aircraft used to take sick or injured people to hospital
- football special — a train service provided specially to transport football supporters to and from a match
- for all sb cares — You can use for all I care to emphasize that it does not matter at all to you what someone does.
- four-deal bridge — a version of bridge in which four hands only are played, the players then cutting for new partners
- freeboard length — the length of a vessel, measured on the summer load line from the fore side of the stem to some part of the stern, usually the after side of the rudderpost.
- frontal lobotomy — Surgery. a psychosurgical procedure in which the frontal lobes are separated from the rest of the brain by cutting the connecting nerve fibers.
- frontier orbital — the highest-energy occupied orbital or lowest-energy unoccupied orbital in a molecule. Such orbitals have a large influence on chemical properties
- full to the brim — If something, especially a container, is filled to the brim or full to the brim with something, it is filled right up to the top.
- fundamental bass — a bass consisting of the roots of the chords employed.
- gabriel, richard — Richard Gabriel
- galvanic battery — battery (def 1a).
- gapless playback — audio or visual playback without any interruptions or silence between tracks or scenes
- garbage disposal — A garbage disposal or a garbage disposal unit is a small machine in the kitchen sink that breaks down waste matter so that it does not block the sink.
- gas blowoff line — A gas blowoff line is a safety device to control sudden increases in pressure.
- general assembly — the legislature in some states of the U.S.