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16-letter words containing b, o, y

  • boston tea party — a raid in 1773 made by citizens of Boston (disguised as Indians) on three British ships in the harbour as a protest against taxes on tea and the monopoly given to the East India Company. The contents of several hundred chests of tea were dumped into the harbour
  • boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
  • boutique brewery — microbrewery.
  • broomrape family — the plant family Orobanchaceae, characterized by scaly, leafless herbaceous plants that are parasitic on the roots of other plants and have irregular flowers and many-seeded capsular fruit, and including beechdrops, broomrape, and squawroot.
  • brown-eyed susan — a composite plant, Rudbeckia triloba, of the southeastern U.S., having a single flower with yellow rays darkening to an orange orbrown at the base and a brownish-black disk.
  • buckthorn family — the plant family Rhamnaceae, characterized by shrubs and trees having alternate, simple leaves, clusters of small flowers, and fruit in the form of a drupe or capsule, and including the buckthorn, cascara, and New Jersey tea.
  • building society — In Britain, a building society is a business which will lend you money when you want to buy a house. You can also invest money in a building society, where it will earn interest. Compare savings and loan association.
  • buoyancy chamber — an enclosed section of a canoe, float, ship or other object that contains air, foam, or another buoyant substance in order to help maintain buoyancy
  • burgundy trefoil — alfalfa.
  • burkitt lymphoma — a rare type of tumour of the white blood cells, occurring mainly in Africa and associated with infection by Epstein-Barr virus
  • burrowing blenny — graveldiver.
  • bush honeysuckle — any of several shrubs of the genus Diervilla, of eastern North America, having clusters of yellowish flowers.
  • busman's holiday — If you have a holiday, but spend it doing something similar to your usual work, you can refer to it as a busman's holiday.
  • butterfly ballot — a ballot paper in the form of two leaves extending from a central spine
  • butterfly flower — Also called Jerusalem date. a shrub or small tree, Bauhinia monandra, of French Guiana, having clusters of pink, purple-streaked flowers.
  • butterfly orchid — an orchid (Oncidium papilio) with reddish flowers, native to South America
  • butterfly stroke — a swimming stroke in which the arms are plunged forward together in large circular movements
  • buying behaviour — the behaviours displayed by consumers when they purchase things, such as preferences, price points, etc
  • by hook or crook — by any means
  • by word of mouth — orally rather than by written means
  • bypass capacitor — a capacitor which provides a low-impedance path for alternating current while not passing any direct current
  • bypass operation — an operation involving redirection of blood flow, either to avoid a diseased blood vessel or in order to perform heart surgery
  • cabbage root fly — a dipterous fly, Erioischia brassicae, whose larvae feed on the roots and stems of cabbages and other brassicas: family Muscidae (houseflies, etc)
  • can you beat it? — an expression of utter amazement or surprise
  • capacity booking — a time when someone has booked the whole of a venue or the maximum amount of something available
  • carboxylesterase — (enzyme) Any enzyme that catalyses the hydrolysis of a carboxylic ester.
  • carboxypeptidase — any of several digestive enzymes that catalyze the removal of an amino acid from the end of a peptide chain having a free carbonyl group.
  • cathode ray tube — (hardware)   (CRT) An electrical device for displaying images by exciting phosphor dots with a scanned electron beam. CRTs are found in computer VDUs and monitors, televisions and oscilloscopes. The first commercially practical CRT was perfected on 29 January 1901 by Allen B DuMont. A large glass envelope containing a negative electrode (the cathode) emits electrons (formerly called "cathode rays") when heated, as in a vacuum tube. The electrons are accelerated across a large voltage gradient toward the flat surface of the tube (the screen) which is covered with phosphor. When an electron strikes the phosphor, light is emitted. The electron beam is deflected by electromagnetic coils around the outside of the tube so that it scans across the screen, usually in horizontal stripes. This scan pattern is known as a raster. By controlling the current in the beam, the brightness at any particular point (roughly a "pixel") can be varied. Different phosphors have different "persistence" - the length of time for which they glow after being struck by electrons. If the scanning is done fast enough, the eye sees a steady image, due to both the persistence of the phospor and of the eye itself. CRTs also differ in their dot pitch, which determines their spatial resolution, and in whether they use interlace or not.
  • cathode-ray tube — A cathode-ray tube is a device in televisions and computer terminals which sends an image onto the screen.
  • chernobyl packet — (networking)   /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ A network packet that induces a broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, named in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and destination Ethernet address and IP address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare Christmas tree packet.
  • chiclet keyboard — (hardware, abuse)   A keyboard with a small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like pieces of Chiclets chewing gum. Used especially to describe the original IBM PCjr keyboard. Vendors unanimously liked these because they were cheap, and a lot of early portable and laptop computers were launched with them. Customers rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and chiclets are not often seen on anything larger than a digital watch any more.
  • city of aberdeen — a council area in NE Scotland, established in 1996. Pop: 206 600 (2003 est). Area: 186 sq km (72 sq miles)
  • clinically obese — overweight to a degree which causes medical complications
  • close by/at hand — Something that is close by or close at hand is near to you.
  • come-to-bed eyes — a sexually alluring expression
  • commensurability — The quality of being commensurable or commensurate.
  • companionability — The state of being companionable, suitability for companionship.
  • constructability — Alternative form of constructibility.
  • constructibility — The condition of being constructible.
  • copyright symbol — (character, legal)   "©" The internationally recognised symbol required to introduce a copyright notice, a letter C with a circle around it. This can be encoded in ISO 8859-1 as character code decimal 169, hexadecimal A9, in HTML as ©, © or ©. A "c" in parentheses: "(c)" is sometimes used in documents stored in a coded character set such as ASCII that does not include the C in a circle, but this has no legal meaning.
  • crossbow archery — the sport of shooting with a crossbow
  • cuban royal palm — a feather palm, Roystonea regia, of tropical America, having a trunk that is swollen in the middle, drooping leaves from 10 to 15 feet (3 to 5 meters) long, and small, round fruit.
  • cut and blow-dry — a hairdressing procedure in which the customer's hair is cut and blow-dried
  • cyanogen bromide — a colorless, slightly water-soluble, poisonous, volatile, crystalline solid, BrCN, used chiefly as a fumigant and a pesticide.
  • cytotrophoblasts — Plural form of cytotrophoblast.
  • daylight robbery — If someone charges you a great deal of money for something and you think this is unfair or unreasonable, you can refer to this as daylight robbery.
  • debating society — a club, e.g. at a school or university, which regularly holds debates
  • dehydroascorbate — (organic compound) Any salt or ester of dehydroascorbic acid.
  • demolition derby — a competition in which contestants drive old cars into each other until there is only one car left running
  • deoxyhaemoglobin — (biochemistry) The form of haemoglobin that has released its oxygen.
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