17-letter words containing b, r, a, c
- combine harvester — A combine harvester is a large machine which is used on farms to cut, sort, and clean grain.
- common of turbary — (in England) the legal right to cut peat for fuel on a common
- confirmation-bias — the tendency to process and analyze information in such a way that it supports one’s preexisting ideas and convictions: Confirmation bias is a major issue when we get all our news from social media sites. Unfortunately, their experimental method was proven invalid due to confirmation bias.
- congo-brazzaville — a republic in W Central Africa: formerly the French colony of Middle Congo, part of French Equatorial Africa, it became independent in 1960; consists mostly of equatorial forest, with savanna and extensive swamps; drained chiefly by the Rivers Congo and Ubangi. Official language: French. Religion: Christian majority. Currency: franc. Capital: Brazzaville. Pop: 4 492 689 (2013 est). Area: 342 000 sq km (132 018 sq miles)
- contraband of war — war materiel, as ammunition or weapons, which, by international law, may rightfully be intercepted and seized by either belligerent when shipped to the other one by a neutral country
- contrasuggestible — responding or tending to respond to a suggestion by doing or believing the opposite
- creature of habit — If you say that someone is a creature of habit, you mean that they usually do the same thing at the same time each day, rather than doing new and different things.
- cross-lot bracing — bracing extending from one side of an excavation to the opposite to retain the earth on both sides.
- customs brokerage — the work of a customs broker
- cypriot syllabary — a syllabic script in use on Cyprus in the first millennium b.c., used for the writing of Greek and of an unknown language.
- cyrillic alphabet — the alphabet derived from that of the Greeks, supposedly by Saint Cyril, for the writing of Slavonic languages: now used primarily for Russian, Bulgarian, and the Serbian dialect of Serbo-Croat
- cytotrophoblastic — Relating to, or containing, cytotrophoblasts.
- dagestan republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the Caspian Sea: annexed from Persia in 1813; rich mineral resources. Capital: Makhachkala. Pop: 2 584 200 (2002). Area: 50 278 sq km (19 416 sq miles)
- deoxyribonuclease — DNase.
- dicarboxylic acid — any carboxylic acid that contains two carboxyl groups per molecule
- discreditableness — Quality of being discreditable.
- discrete variable — a variable that may assume only a countable, and usually finite, number of values.
- disrespectability — Lack of respectability.
- doberman pinscher — one of a German breed of medium-sized, short-haired dogs having a black, brown, or blue coat with rusty brown markings.
- double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.
- double track line — a railway line with double track
- dwarf huckleberry — tangleberry.
- egyptian brackets — (programming, humour) A humourous term for K&R indent style, referring to the "one hand up in front, one down behind" pose which popular culture inexplicably associates with Egypt.
- electricity board — a company which supplies electricity
- fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
- flowering tobacco — any plant belonging to the genus Nicotiana, of the nightshade family, as N. alata and N. sylvestris, having clusters of fragrant flowers that usually bloom at night, grown as an ornamental.
- fluid lubrication — lubrication in which bearing surfaces are separated by an oil film sustained by the motion of the parts
- fort walton beach — a city in NW Florida.
- gamblers' fallacy — the fallacy that in a series of chance events the probability of one event occurring increases with the number of times another event has occurred in succession
- garbage collector — refuse collector, dustman
- glastonbury chair — a folding chair having legs crossed front-to-back and having arms connected to the back and to the front seat rail.
- hard-shelled crab — a crab, esp. an edible sea crab, before it has shed its hard shell
- hasbrouck heights — a borough in NE New Jersey.
- henry cabot lodge — Henry Cabot, 1850–1924, U.S. public servant and author: senator 1893–1924.
- herbaceous border — A herbaceous border is a flower bed containing a mixture of plants that flower every year.
- high-carbon steel — steel containing between 0.5 and 1.5 per cent carbon
- histamine blocker — any of various substances that act at a specific receptor site to block certain actions of histamine.
- humpbacked bridge — A humpbacked bridge or humpback bridge is a short and very curved bridge with a shape similar to a semi-circle.
- hybrid fiber coax — (networking) (HFC) A kind of physical connection used in networks for audio, video, and data. DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) is used in Europe and DOCSIS is used in N America.
- hydrofluorocarbon — Any of a class of partly chlorinated and fluorinated hydrocarbons, used as an alternative to chlorofluorocarbons in foam production, refrigeration, and other processes.
- hyperbolic secant — a hyperbolic function that is the reciprocal of cosh; sech
- hyperbolic spiral — rθ = a, (where a is a constant)
- hyperexcitability — an excessive reaction to stimuli.
- iambic pentameter — a verse line consisting of five metrical iambs
- impracticableness — The state of being impracticable; impracticability.
- in the background — behind the focus of attention
- incubation period — the period between infection and the appearance of signs of a disease.
- indecipherability — Quality of being indecipherable.
- indescribableness — The quality of being indescribable.
- insectivorous bat — any bat of the suborder Microchiroptera, typically having large ears and feeding on insects. The group includes common bats (Myotis species), vampire bats, etc