18-letter words containing b, n, u
- born to the purple — being of royal or high birth
- 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.
- boundedly complete — (theory) (Or "consistently complete") In domain theory, a complete partial order is boundedly complete if every bounded subset has a least upper bound.
- bounty-fed farmers — farmers who benefit from subsidies
- bourdon-tube gauge — an instrument for measuring the pressure of gases or liquids, consisting of a semicircular or coiled, flexible metal tube attached to a gauge that records the degree to which the tube is straightened by the pressure of the gas or liquid inside.
- branch instruction — a machine-language or assembly-language instruction that causes the computer to branch to another instruction
- brand-name product — A brand-name product is one which is made by a well-known manufacturer and has the manufacturer's label on it.
- bread and circuses — something offered as a means of distracting attention from a problem or grievance
- 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.
- 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-and-buy sale — A bring-and-buy sale is an informal sale to raise money for a charity or other organization. People who come to the sale bring things to be sold and buy things that other people have brought.
- briquet's syndrome — somatization disorder.
- broadcasting house — any of a number of buildings in the UK from which the BBC broadcasts or has broadcast
- bubble-jet printer — an ink-jet printer that heats the ink before printing
- building materials — materials such as bricks, cement, timber, etc
- built-in self test — (BIST) The technique of designing circuits with additional logic which can be used to test proper operation of the primary (functional) logic.
- bullnose stretcher — bull stretcher (def 1).
- bullnose-stretcher — Also called bullnose stretcher. a brick having one of the edges along its length rounded for laying as a stretcher in a sill or the like.
- 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.
- butter-and-egg man — a prosperous businessman from a small town or a farmer who spends his money ostentatiously on visits to a big city.
- cabernet sauvignon — a black grape originally grown in the Bordeaux area of France, and now throughout the wine-producing world
- 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)
- chambered nautilus — nautilus (def 1).
- change the subject — to select a new topic of conversation
- character-building — improving certain good or useful traits in a person's character, esp self-reliance, endurance, and courage
- chebyshev equation — Tchebycheff equation.
- chlorofluorocarbon — Chlorofluorocarbons are the same as CFCs.
- circular breathing — a technique for sustaining a phrase on a wind instrument, using the cheeks to force air out of the mouth while breathing in through the nose
- coiled tubing unit — A coiled tubing unit is all of the equipment needed to carry out coiled tubing drilling.
- combination square — an adjustable device for carpenters, used as a try square, miter square, level, etc.
- combustion chamber — an enclosed space in which combustion takes place, such as the space above the piston in the cylinder head of an internal-combustion engine or the chambers in a gas turbine or rocket engine in which fuel and oxidant burn
- combustion furnace — a furnace used in the laboratory to carry out elemental analysis of organic compounds
- common-law husband — a man considered to be a woman's husband after the couple have cohabited for several years
- composition rubber — manufactured rubber
- connected subgraph — (mathematics) A connected graph consisting of a subset of the nodes and edges of some other graph.
- cumberland plateau — division of the W Appalachians, extending from S W.Va. to N Ala.
- cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
- de bruijn notation — (language) A variation of lambda notation for specifying functions using numbers instead of names to refer to formal parameters. A reference to a formal parameter is a number which gives the number of lambdas (written as \ here) between the reference and the lambda which binds the parameter. E.g. the function \ f . \ x . f x would be written \ . \ . 1 0. The 0 refers to the innermost lambda, the 1 to the next etc. The chief advantage of this notation is that it avoids the possibility of name capture and removes the need for alpha conversion.
- debt restructuring — Debt restructuring is a method of organizing a company's debts in a different way in order to make the company more likely to be able to pay them.
- deep-discount bond — a fixed-interest security that pays little or no interest but is issued at a substantial discount to its redemption value, thus largely substituting capital gain for income
- desktop publishing — Desktop publishing is the production of printed materials such as newspapers and magazines using a desktop computer and a laser printer, rather than using conventional printing methods. The abbreviation DTP is also used.
- devil's paintbrush — a perennial European hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) with leafless flower stalks bearing a cluster of orange-red heads: now a common weed in N U.S. and Canada
- diabetes insipidus — a disorder of the pituitary gland causing excessive thirst and excretion of large quantities of dilute urine
- diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
- distinguishability — to mark off as different (often followed by from or by): He was distinguished from the other boys by his height.
- distribution class — form class