16-letter words containing b, r, y
- celebrity status — the prominence of film star, footballer, musician etc who is constantly photographed and written about in tabloids and magazines
- 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)
- commensurability — The quality of being commensurable or commensurate.
- 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.
- cramp sb's style — If someone or something cramps your style, their presence or existence restricts your behavior in some way.
- cray instability — A shortcoming of a program or algorithm that manifests itself only when a large problem is being run on a powerful machine such as a Cray. Generally more subtle than bugs that can be detected in smaller problems running on a workstation or minicomputer.
- 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.
- 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
- deoxyribonucleic — (genetics) Of or pertaining to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or its derivatives.
- derbyshire chair — a chair of the mid-17th century, made of oak, usually without arms, and having a back of two carved rails between square uprights.
- dichlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of twelve isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing two chlorine atoms.
- diethyl carbinol — a colorless, liquid isomer of amyl alcohol, (CH3CH2)2CHOH, used in drugs and as a solvent
- dimethylcarbinol — isopropyl alcohol.
- dimly-remembered — recalled in an unclear or vague way
- discriminability — The condition of being discriminable.
- distributionally — In a distributional manner.
- double monastery — a religious community of both men and women who live in separate establishments under the same superior and who worship in a common church.
- drugstore cowboy — a young man who loafs around drugstores or on street corners.
- dry-cell battery — a dry battery
- dublin bay prawn — a large prawn usually used in a dish of scampi
- east gwillimbury — a town in S Ontario, in S Canada.
- ebony spleenwort — a fern, Asplenium platyneuron, of woody areas of North America, having ladderlike leaves and shiny, dark brown stems.
- eclipsing binary — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
- embroidery frame — a frame in the form of a pair of (usually circular) rings, designed to keep the fabric taut while an embroiderer works on it
- erymanthian boar — a wild boar that ravaged the district around Mount Erymanthus: captured by Hercules as his fourth labour
- erythroblastosis — A medical condition in which erythroblasts are abnormally found in the blood.
- eyebrow tweezers — small tweezers for plucking hairs out of your eyebrows
- fancy dress ball — a ball at which the guests wear fancy dress
- fertility symbol — an object, esp a phallic symbol, used in fertility-cult ceremonies to symbolize regeneration
- first-time buyer — someone who is buying his or her first house
- flabbergastingly — Surprisingly, astonishingly or amazingly.
- flashbulb memory — the clear recollections that a person may have of the circumstances associated with a dramatic event
- flat-track bully — a sportsperson who dominates inferior opposition, but who cannot beat top-level opponents
- flibbertigibbety — Like a flibbertigibbet; flighty; scatterbrained.
- frontal lobotomy — Surgery. a psychosurgical procedure in which the frontal lobes are separated from the rest of the brain by cutting the connecting nerve fibers.
- galvanic battery — battery (def 1a).
- general assembly — the legislature in some states of the U.S.
- generalisability — Non-Oxford British standard spelling of generalizability.
- generalizability — The quality of being generalizable.
- hamadryas baboon — a baboon, Papio (Comopithecus) hamadryas, of Ethiopia, the male of which has a mantle of long, dark hair about the head and shoulders: held sacred by the ancient Egyptians.