14-letter words containing b, o, p
- beyond compare — If you describe something as beyond compare, you mean that it is extremely good or extremely great.
- beyond dispute — not open to dispute or question; settled
- biceps femoris — See under biceps.
- bioprospecting — searching for plant or animal species for use as a source of commercially exploitable products, such as medicinal drugs
- bipolarisation — the act of bipolarising
- bipolarization — the action of rendering something bipolar
- bishop's mitre — a European heteropterous bug, Aelia acuminata, whose larvae are a pest of cereal grasses: family Pentatomidae
- bishops' bible — an English translation of the Bible made under the direction of Matthew Parker and published in 1568: the recognized translation of the Bible in England until the Authorized (King James) Version of 1611.
- bisphosphonate — any drug of a class that inhibits the resorption of bone; used in treating certain bone disorders, esp osteoporosis
- bite one's lip — If you bite your lip or your tongue, you stop yourself from saying something that you want to say, because it would be the wrong thing to say in the circumstances.
- blaxploitation — a genre of films featuring Black stereotypes
- blepharoplasty — cosmetic surgery performed on the eyelid
- blister copper — an impure form of copper having a blister-like surface due to the release of gas during cooling
- block capitals — Block capitals are simple capital letters that are not decorated in any way.
- block printing — printing from hand engraved or carved blocks of wood or linoleum
- block sampling — the selection of a corpus for statistical literary analysis by random selection of a starting point and consideration of the continuous passage following it
- blood grouping — the ascertainment of a person's blood group
- blood platelet — any of the minute, disklike, colorless elements of the blood that are essential for normal clotting
- blood pressure — the pressure exerted by the blood on the inner walls of the arteries, being relative to the elasticity and diameter of the vessels and the force of the heartbeat
- blood spinning — a medical treatment, a use for which is the healing of sports-related injuries, that involves removing the platelet cells from the patient’s blood sample then injecting them into the injured area in order to speed recovery
- blotting paper — Blotting paper is thick soft paper that you use for soaking up and drying ink on a piece of paper.
- blow one's top — to lose one's temper
- boarding party — group of officers or sailors who board a ship
- bodice-ripping — A bodice-ripping film or novel is one which is set in the past and which includes a lot of sex scenes. You use this word especially if you do not think it is very good and is just intended to entertain people.
- body corporate — a group of persons incorporated to carry out a specific enterprise
- bomb explosion — an explosion caused by the detonation of a bomb
- bone porcelain — bone china.
- boon companion — a close and constant friend
- bophuthatswana — (formerly) a Bantu homeland in N South Africa: consisted of six separate areas; declared independent by South Africa in 1977 although this was not internationally recognized; abolished in 1993. Capital: Mmabatho
- border dispute — a disagreement between countries about where the border between them should be drawn
- bottling plant — a factory where drinks are bottled
- bottomless pit — If you describe a supply of something as bottomless, you mean that it seems so large that it will never run out.
- bouillon spoon — a spoon with a round bowl, smaller than a soup spoon.
- bow and scrape — to behave in an excessively deferential or obsequious way
- bowstring hemp — a hemplike fibre obtained from the sansevieria
- brachypinakoid — the side parallel to the shorter horizontal axis in a crystal
- bread poultice — a poultice made from breadcrumbs
- breaking point — If something or someone has reached breaking point, they have so many problems or difficulties that they can no longer cope with them, and may soon collapse or be unable to continue.
- brewer's droop — an inability to get an erection because of excessive alcohol consumption
- broad-spectrum — effective against a wide variety of diseases or microorganisms
- bronchospastic — of or relating to bronchospasms
- brood parasite — a young bird hatched and reared by birds of a different species as a result of brood parasitism.
- broom cupboard — a small cupboard or closet for storing brooms, mops, etc
- brownie points — a credit toward advancement or good standing gained especially by currying favor.
- bubble company — a company whose shares are highly valued and then plummet
- bubonic plague — Bubonic plague is a serious infectious disease spread by rats. It killed many people during the Middle Ages.
- bug-compatible — Said of a design or revision that has been badly compromised by a requirement to be compatible with fossils or misfeatures in other programs or (especially) previous releases of itself. "MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path separator to be bug-compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an option character in 1.0."
- bulk transport — the transport of large quantities of goods or commodities in lorries, ships, or by rail
- burn-in period — 1. (testing) A factory soak test intended to increase the chance that components that fail early due to infant mortality will fail before the system leaves the factory. 2. (jargon) When one is so intensely involved in a new project that one forgets basic needs such as food, drink and sleep. Excessive burn-in can lead to burn-out. See hack mode, larval stage.
- bursting point — the point at which normal capacity is exceeded.