15-letter words containing b, t, r, i
- sabbatical year — Also called sabbatical leave. (in a school, college, university, etc.) a year, usually every seventh, of release from normal teaching duties granted to a professor, as for study or travel.
- salisbury steak — ground beef, sometimes mixed with other foods, shaped like a hamburger patty and broiled or fried, often garnished or served with a sauce.
- satin bowerbird — the largest Australian bowerbird, Ptilonorhynchus violaceus, the male of which has lustrous blue plumage
- self-absorption — preoccupation with oneself or one's own affairs.
- semiabstraction — a work of art whose subject matter is semi-abstract
- september rains — rainy weather during the month of September
- sesquicarbonate — a salt intermediate in composition between a carbonate and a bicarbonate or consisting of the two combined.
- she'll be right — that's all right; not to worry
- shock probation — the release on probation of a criminal after brief imprisonment
- side impact bar — A side impact bar is a long beam in a car door that is designed to protect passengers during a crash.
- single-breasted — (of a coat, jacket, etc.) having a front closure directly in the center with only a narrow overlap secured by a single button or row of buttons.
- slab plastering — coarse plastering, as between the studs in a half-timbered wall.
- sons of liberty — any of several patriotic societies, originally secret, that opposed the Stamp Act and thereafter supported moves for American independence.
- southern blight — a disease of peanuts, tomatoes, and other plants, caused by a fungus, Sclerotium rolfsii, affecting the roots and resulting in rapid wilting.
- spermatoblastic — relating to a spermatoblast
- spiral notebook — a notebook held together by a coil of wire passed through small holes punched at the back edge of the covers and individual pages
- stamford bridge — a village in N England, east of York: site of a battle (1066) in which King Harold of England defeated his brother Tostig and King Harald Hardrada of Norway, three weeks before the Battle of Hastings
- starting blocks — the rigid blocks adjustable at an angle and mounted on a track against which a runner's shoes are placed to aid in starting
- straight-backed — having a straight, usually high, back: a straight-backed chair.
- strawberry dish — a shallow, circular fruit dish with a fluted or pierced border.
- strephosymbolia — a condition of perceiving objects as their mirror image and, specifically, having difficulty in distinguishing letters in words
- streptobacillus — any of various bacilli that form in chains.
- string variable — data on which arithmetical operations will not be performed
- strobe lighting — a high-intensity flashing beam of light produced by rapid electrical discharges in a tube or by a perforated disc rotating in front of an intense light source: used in discotheques, etc
- strombuliferous — having organs coiled as spirals
- sub-corporation — an association of individuals, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members. See also municipal corporation, public corporation.
- sub-distributor — a person or thing that distributes.
- subject-raising — a rule that moves the subject of a complement clause into the clause in which it is embedded, as in the derivation of He is likely to be late from It is likely that he will be late
- suborganization — an organization within a larger organization
- subperiosteally — the normal investment of bone, consisting of a dense, fibrous outer layer, to which muscles attach, and a more delicate, inner layer capable of forming bone.
- subreptitiously — in a subreptitious manner
- substitutionary — a person or thing acting or serving in place of another.
- subtrochanteric — Anatomy. either of two knobs at the top of the femur, the greater on the outside and the lesser on the inside, serving for the attachment of muscles between the thigh and pelvis.
- suburbanization — to give suburban characteristics to: to suburbanize a rural area.
- suppressibility — the capacity to be suppressed
- surabaya strait — a narrow strait in Indonesia, separating E Java and Madura Island
- svedberg (unit) — a unit of time, equal to 10-13 second, used in determining the rate of sedimentation of a macromolecule in an ultracentrifuge
- symbol retailer — any member of a voluntary group of independent retailers, often using a common name or symbol, formed to obtain better prices from wholesalers or manufacturers in competition with supermarket chains
- tableau curtain — a curtain, often used as an act curtain, designed to be drawn aside and up to give a festooned or draped effect.
- tailor's bunion — a bunionlike enlargement of the joint of the little toe, usually caused by pressure from tight shoes.
- tamarisk gerbil — gerbil (def 2).
- tararua biscuit — a tramper's home-made biscuit with a high calorie content
- tariff barriers — a barrier to trade between certain countries or geographical areas which takes the form of abnormally high taxes levied by a government on imports or occasionally exports for purposes of protection, support of the balance of payments, or the raising of revenue
- tectibranchiate — denoting or relating to the suborder of molluscs Tectibranchia
- tennis bracelet — a bracelet consisting of a row of individually set, uniformly sized diamonds or other gemstones.
- tetrabranchiate — belonging or pertaining to the Nautiloidea (Tetrabranchiata), a subclass or order of cephalopods with four gills, including the pearly nautilus and numerous fossil forms.
- the lost tribes — the ten tribes deported from the N kingdom of Israel in 721 bc and believed never to have returned to Palestine
- the precambrian — the Precambrian era
- the-arbitration — a comedy (c300 b.c.) by Menander, extant only as a fragment.
- thermal barrier — the high temperatures produced by the friction between a supersonic object and the earth's atmosphere that limit the speed of an airplane or rocket.