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18-letter words containing b, r, a, t

  • 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.
  • ifs, ands, or buts — a supposition; uncertain possibility: The future is full of ifs.
  • in all probability — the quality or fact of being probable.
  • in the same breath — the air inhaled and exhaled in respiration.
  • incommensurability — not commensurable; having no common basis, measure, or standard of comparison.
  • incremental backup — (operating system)   A kind of backup that copies all files which have changed since the date of the previous backup. The first backup of a file system should include all files - a "full backup". Call this level 0. The next backup could also be a full level 0 backup but it is usually much quicker to do a level 1 backup which will include only those files which have changed since the level 0 backup. Together the level 0 and level 1 backups will include the latest version of every file. Level 1 backups can be made until, say, the backup tape is nearly full, after which we can switch to level 2. Each level includes those files which have changed since the last backup at a lower level. The more levels you use, the longer it will take to restore the latest version of a file (or all files) if you don't know when it was last modified. Compare differential backup.
  • indecent behaviour — the offence of committing indecent acts
  • individual liberty — the liberty of an individual to exercise freely those rights generally accepted as being outside of governmental control.
  • 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.
  • information bureau — an office where you can go to get information
  • 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.
  • insurable interest — a financial or other interest in the life or property covered by an insurance contract, without which the contract cannot be enforced
  • interbroker dealer — a specialist who matches the needs of different market makers and facilitates dealings between them
  • interchangeability — (of two things) capable of being put or used in the place of each other: interchangeable symbols.
  • interdealer broker — an agent who is paid a commission to bring buyers and sellers together
  • interdependability — capable of being depended on; worthy of trust; reliable: a dependable employee.
  • intimate borrowing — the borrowing of linguistic forms by one language or dialect from another when both occupy a single geographical or cultural community.
  • ionization chamber — a device for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation, consisting of a tube containing a low pressure gas and two electrodes between which a high voltage is maintained. The current between the electrodes is a function of the intensity of the radiation
  • jacobite rebellion — the unsuccessful Jacobite rising of 1715 led by James Francis Edward Stuart
  • johannes gutenberg — Johannes [yoh-hahn-uh s] /yoʊˈhɑn əs/ (Show IPA), (Johann Gensfleisch) c1400–68, German printer: credited with invention of printing from movable type.
  • kentucky bluegrass — a grass, Poa pratensis, of the Mississippi valley, used for pasturage and lawns.
  • kirtland's warbler — a wood warbler, Dendroica kirtlandii, breeding only in north-central Michigan and wintering in the Bahamas, bluish gray above, striped with black and pale yellow below: an endangered species.
  • knotted cranesbill — a British wildflower, Geranium nodosum, an meadow geranium with bright pink or purple flowers
  • known lazy bastard — (abuse)   (KLB) A term, used among technical support staff, for a user who repeatedly asks for help with problems whose solutions are clearly explained in the documentation, and persists in doing so after having been told to RTFM. KLBs are singled out for special treatment (i.e. ridicule), especially if they have been heard to say "It's so boring to read the manual! Why don't you just tell me?". The deepest pit in Hell is reserved for KLBs whose questions reveal total ignorance of the basic concepts (e.g., "How do I make a font in Excel?", "Where do I turn on my RAM?"), and who refuse to accept that their questions are neither simple nor well-formed.
  • labeled bracketing — a representation of the constituent structure of a string, as a word or sentence, comparable to a tree diagram, in which each constituent is shown in brackets and given a subscript grammatical label, with each bracketed item corresponding to a node in a tree diagram.
  • labrador retriever — one of a breed of retrievers having a short, thick, oily, solid black or yellow coat, raised originally in Newfoundland.
  • lambda abstraction — A term in lambda-calculus denoting a function. A lambda abstraction begins with a lower-case lambda (represented as "\" in this document), followed by a variable name (the "bound variable"), a full stop and a lambda expression (the body). The body is taken to extend as far to the right as possible so, for example an expression, \ x . \ y . x+y is read as \ x . (\ y . x+y). A nested abstraction such as this is often abbreviated to: \ x y . x + y The lambda expression (\ v . E) denotes a function which takes an argument and returns the term E with all free occurrences of v replaced by the actual argument. Application is represented by juxtaposition so (\ x . x) 42 represents the identity function applied to the constant 42. A lambda abstraction in Lisp is written as the symbol lambda, a list of zero or more variable names and a list of zero or more terms, e.g. (lambda (x y) (plus x y)) Lambda expressions in Haskell are written as a backslash, "\", one or more patterns (e.g. variable names), "->" and an expression, e.g. \ x -> x.
  • 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.
  • leatherback turtle — a sea turtle, Dermochelys coriacea, having the shell embedded in a leathery skin, reaching a length of more than 7 feet (2.1 meter) and a weight of more than 1000 pounds (450 kg): the largest living sea turtle; an endangered species.
  • legislative branch — the branch of government having the power to make laws; the legislature.
  • lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
  • 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.
  • little st. bernard — Great, a mountain pass between SW Switzerland and NW Italy, in the Pennine Alps: Napoleon led his army through it in 1800; location of a hospice. 8108 feet (2470 meters) high.
  • lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
  • lowell observatory — the astronomical observatory, situated in Flagstaff, Arizona, at which Pluto was discovered in 1930.
  • macroinvertebrates — Plural form of macroinvertebrate.
  • mandelbrot, benoit — Benoit Mandelbrot
  • manufacturing base — the manufacturing industries of an area or a country considered as a unit and a constituent part of the economy
  • master boot record — (operating system, storage)   A special area on a computer's main hard disk that gives the location of the disk's boot block or bootable partition where the operating system is installed.
  • membrane transport — the process by which physiologically important substances, such as calcium ions, sugars, etc, are conveyed across a biological membrane
  • 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.
  • microinvertebrates — Plural form of microinvertebrate.
  • motor torpedo boat — PT boat.
  • mountain cranberry — cowberry
  • moving bed reactor — A moving bed reactor is a reactor in which a layer of catalyst in the form of granules is moved between a reaction area and a regeneration area.
  • napoleon bonaparte — Jérôme [juh-rohm;; French zhey-rohm] /dʒəˈroʊm;; French ʒeɪˈroʊm/ (Show IPA), 1784–1860, king of Westphalia 1807 (brother of Napoleon I).
  • natural childbirth — childbirth involving little or no use of drugs or anesthesia and usually involving a program in which the mother is psychologically and physically prepared for the birth process.
  • 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.
  • neighborhood watch — a neighborhood surveillance program or group in which residents keep watch over one another's houses, patrol the streets, etc., in an attempt to prevent crime.
  • net book agreement — a former agreement between UK publishers and booksellers that until 1995 prohibited booksellers from undercutting the price of books sold in bookshops
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