18-letter words containing b, o, l, t, e
- file control block — (operating system) (FCB) An MS-DOS data structure that stores information about an open file. The number of FCBs is configured in CONFIG.SYS with a command FCBS=x,y where x (between 1 and 255 inclusive, default 4) specifies the number of file control blocks to allocate and therefore the number of files that MS-DOS can have open at one time. y (not needed from DOS 5.0 onward) specifies the number of files to be closed automatically if all x are in use.
- flat on one's back — lying supine
- flat-bottomed rail — a rail having a cross section like an inverted T, with the top extremity enlarged slightly to form the head
- football supporter — a person who supports a particular football team
- forget-me-not blue — a shade of blue similar to the shade of the flowers of a forget-me-not
- forward compatible — forward compatibility
- fuller rose beetle — a beetle, Pantomorus godmani, that feeds on the leaves of roses as well as on those of citrus and other fruit trees.
- garbage collection — (programming) (GC) The process by which dynamically allocated storage is reclaimed during the execution of a program. The term usually refers to automatic periodic storage reclamation by the garbage collector (part of the run-time system), as opposed to explicit code to free specific blocks of memory. Automatic garbage collection is usually triggered during memory allocation when the amount free memory falls below some threshold or after a certain number of allocations. Normal execution is suspended and the garbage collector is run. There are many variations on this basic scheme. Languages like Lisp represent expressions as graphs built from cells which contain pointers and data. These languages use automatic dynamic storage allocation to build expressions. During the evaluation of an expression it is necessary to reclaim space which is used by subexpressions but which is no longer pointed to by anything. This reclaimed memory is returned to the free memory pool for subsequent reallocation. Without garbage collection the program's memory requirements would increase monotonically throughout execution, possibly exceeding system limits on virtual memory size. The three main methods are mark-sweep garbage collection, reference counting and copying garbage collection. See also the AI koan about garbage collection.
- gilbert and george — a team of artists, Gilbert Proesch, Italian, born 1942, and George Passmore, British, born 1943: noted esp for their photomontages and performance works
- golden bantam corn — a horticultural variety of sweet corn having yellow kernels.
- golden gate bridge — a bridge connecting N California with San Francisco peninsula. 4200-foot (1280-meter) center span.
- hamilton's problem — Hamiltonian problem
- honourable mention — If something that you do in a competition is given an honourable mention, it receives special praise from the judges although it does not actually win a prize.
- how the wind blows — air in natural motion, as that moving horizontally at any velocity along the earth's surface: A gentle wind blew through the valley. High winds were forecast.
- htmlcommentbox.com — (web) A service for adding a comment box to any web page, allowing visitors to leave comments and the site owner to review them.
- incommensurability — not commensurable; having no common basis, measure, or standard of comparison.
- indolebutyric acid — a white or yellowish, crystalline, water-insoluble powder, C 12 H 13 O 2 N, a plant hormone similar to indoleacetic acid and used for the same purposes.
- informatory double — a double intended to inform one's partner that one has a strong hand and to urge a bid regardless of the strength of his or her hand.
- input/output table — a table of all the inputs and outputs of the industries of an economy
- intensional object — the object of a propositional attitude that may or may not exist, as in Robert is dreaming of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. This must be an intensional (or opaque) context, for otherwise, since there is no pot of gold, Robert would be dreaming of nothing
- interbroker dealer — a specialist who matches the needs of different market makers and facilitates dealings between them
- interdealer broker — an agent who is paid a commission to bring buyers and sellers together
- irresponsibilities — said, done, or characterized by a lack of a sense of responsibility: His refusal to work shows him to be completely irresponsible.
- jacobite rebellion — the unsuccessful Jacobite rising of 1715 led by James Francis Edward Stuart
- knotted cranesbill — a British wildflower, Geranium nodosum, an meadow geranium with bright pink or purple flowers
- labrador retriever — one of a breed of retrievers having a short, thick, oily, solid black or yellow coat, raised originally in Newfoundland.
- lambeth conference — a convention of the bishops of the Anglican communion, held about every 10 years at Lambeth Palace to confer but not to define doctrine or to legislate on ecclesiastical matters.
- last but not least — lastly
- linear combination — a sum of products of each quantity times a constant: The expression aX + bY + cZ is a linear combination of X, Y, and Z, where a, b, and c are constants.
- live by one's wits — the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure. Synonyms: drollery, facetiousness, waggishness, repartee.
- lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
- long-horned beetle — any of numerous, often brightly colored beetles of the family Cerambycidae, usually with long antennae, the larva of which bores into the wood of living or decaying trees.
- loschmidt's number — the number of molecules in one cubic centimeter of an ideal gas at standard temperature and pressure, equal to 2.687 × 10 19.
- lowell observatory — the astronomical observatory, situated in Flagstaff, Arizona, at which Pluto was discovered in 1930.
- mandelbrot, benoit — Benoit Mandelbrot
- metabolic syndrome — Pathology. a group of medical conditions present simultaneously in a patient, as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, and an excess of abdominal fat, that increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Also called insulin resistance syndrome.
- mixed-flow turbine — a water turbine in which water flows radially and axially through the rotating vanes
- mobile data system — a system consisting of a client computer requesting information and a server supplying this information
- mobile police unit — a motorized police unit
- mobility allowance — an allowance paid by the government to help people who have limited mobility
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- napoleon bonaparte — Jérôme [juh-rohm;; French zhey-rohm] /dʒəˈroʊm;; French ʒeɪˈroʊm/ (Show IPA), 1784–1860, king of Westphalia 1807 (brother of Napoleon I).
- nebular hypothesis — the theory that the solar system evolved from a mass of nebular matter: prominent in the 19th century following its precise formulation by Laplace.
- nobiliary particle — a preposition forming part of a title of nobility or surname, as French de or German von.
- non-responsibility — the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one's power, control, or management.
- non-understandable — capable of being understood; comprehensible.
- noninterchangeable — That cannot be interchanged with another.
- north attleborough — a city in SE Massachusetts.
- notifiable disease — any one of a number of infectious diseases of humans and animals, that must be reported to the public health authorities
- objective idealism — a form of idealism asserting that the act of experiencing has a reality combining and transcending the natures of the object experienced and of the mind of the observer.