20-letter words containing b, r, u, t, a
- straight-cut tobacco — tobacco that is cut in such a way that it will lie flat.
- subscription library — a commercial lending library
- the butterfat cheque — the total annual cash return for operations on a dairy farm
- the canterbury tales — an uncompleted sequence of tales by Chaucer, written for the most part after 1387.
- therapeutic abortion — abortion performed when a woman's pregnancy endangers her health.
- to bear the brunt of — To bear the brunt or take the brunt of something unpleasant means to suffer the main part or force of it.
- to bring up the rear — If a person or vehicle is bringing up the rear, they are the last person or vehicle in a moving line of them.
- to burst into flames — If something bursts into flames or bursts into flame, it suddenly starts burning strongly.
- to catch your breath — If something makes you catch your breath, it makes you take a short breath of air, usually because it shocks you.
- to disturb the peace — If someone is accused of disturbing the peace, they are accused of behaving in a noisy and offensive way in public.
- to get your bearings — to find out where one is or to find out what one should do next
- to get your own back — If you get your own back on someone, you have your revenge on them because of something bad that they have done to you.
- to keep your balance — If you keep your balance, for example, when standing in a moving vehicle, you remain steady and do not fall over. If you lose your balance, you become unsteady and fall over.
- to waste your breath — If someone says you are wasting your breath, they mean that the person you are talking to will not take any notice and so there is no point saying anything to them.
- tobacco mosaic virus — a retrovirus causing mosaic disease in members of the nightshade family. Abbreviation: TMV.
- toothbrush moustache — a short narrow moustache, resembling the filaments of a toothbrush
- travelling-wave tube — an electronic tube in which an electron beam interacts with a distributed high-frequency magnetic field so that energy is transferred from the beam to the field
- tropical disturbance — a very weak, or incipient, tropical cyclone.
- trustee savings bank — a British financial institution which offered savings facilities for small investors and was managed by unpaid trustees. Depositors had no voting rights and no say in financial or managerial matters. The bank is now a public limited company with the same rights and services as other banks and only retains the title in the abbreviated form TSB.
- tubing head pressure — The tubing head pressure is the pressure on the tubing, which is measured at the wellhead.
- united arab emirates — group of Arabian states
- united arab republic — a name given the union of Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961; after that, the official name of Egypt alone until 1971. Abbreviation: U.A.R.
- upper income bracket — a grouping of the highest earning tax payers
- war production board — the board (1942–45) that supervised and regulated the production and sale of matériel essential to the logistics of World War II. Abbreviation: WPB, W.P.B.
- wardrobe malfunction — an embarrassing situation caused by the clothes a person is wearing
- wet-bulb temperature — The wet-bulb temperature is the temperature reached by a small amount of liquid evaporating in a large amount of an unsaturated air-vapor mixture.