18-letter words containing b, u, c, a
- coffee-table music — unadventurous music
- combination square — an adjustable device for carpenters, used as a try square, miter square, level, etc.
- combustion chamber — an enclosed space in which combustion takes place, such as the space above the piston in the cylinder head of an internal-combustion engine or the chambers in a gas turbine or rocket engine in which fuel and oxidant burn
- combustion furnace — a furnace used in the laboratory to carry out elemental analysis of organic compounds
- common-law husband — a man considered to be a woman's husband after the couple have cohabited for several years
- connected subgraph — (mathematics) A connected graph consisting of a subset of the nodes and edges of some other graph.
- cool as a cucumber — very calm; self-possessed
- corpus christi bay — a bay in S Texas, at the mouth of the Nueces River.
- cumberland plateau — division of the W Appalachians, extending from S W.Va. to N Ala.
- cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
- deductive database — (database) A combination of a conventional database containing facts, a knowledge base containing rules, and an inference engine which allows the derivation of information implied by the facts and rules. Commonly, the knowledge base is expressed in a subset of first-order logic and either a SLDNF or Datalog inference engine is used.
- diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
- distribution class — form class
- dominican republic — a republic in the West Indies, occupying the E part of the island of Hispaniola. 19,129 sq. mi. (49,545 sq. km). Capital: Santo Domingo.
- double achievement — a representation of the arms of a husband beside those of his wife such that a difference of rank between them is shown.
- established church — a Church that is officially recognized as a national institution, esp the Church of England
- executable content — (operating system) Executable programs sent by one computer to another via a network. For example a Java applet is executable content. Usage: rare.
- fascicular cambium — cambium that develops within the vascular bundles, producing secondary xylem and phloem.
- fibonacci sequence — (mathematics) The infinite sequence of numbers beginning 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ... in which each term is the sum of the two terms preceding it. The ratio of successive Fibonacci terms tends to the golden ratio, namely (1 + sqrt 5)/2.
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
- furnishing fabrics — fabrics used to make and cover furniture
- gas-discharge tube — any tube in which an electric discharge takes place through a gas
- handlebar mustache — A handlebar mustache is a long thick mustache with curled ends.
- heat of combustion — the heat evolved when one mole of a substance is burnt in oxygen at constant volume
- hebdomadal council — the governing council or senate of Oxford University
- highbush cranberry — a shrub, Viburnum trilobum, of northern North America, having broad clusters of white flowers and edible scarlet berries.
- hydrofluorocarbons — Plural form of hydrofluorocarbon.
- 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
- 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.
- kentucky bluegrass — a grass, Poa pratensis, of the Mississippi valley, used for pasturage and lawns.
- 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.
- lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
- manufacturing base — the manufacturing industries of an area or a country considered as a unit and a constituent part of the economy
- mordovian republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Saransk. Pop: 888 700 (2002). Area: 26 200 sq km (10 110 sq miles)
- mountain cranberry — cowberry
- mozambique channel — a channel in SE Africa, between Mozambique and Madagascar. 950 miles (1530 km) long; 250–550 miles (400–885 km) wide.
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- 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.
- neural tube defect — any of a group of congenital abnormalities involving the brain and spinal cord, including spina bifida and meningocele, caused by failure of the neural tube to close properly during embryonic development.
- non-accountability — the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.
- nuclear capability — If a country has nuclear capability, it is able to produce nuclear power and usually nuclear weapons.
- objective modula-2 — (language) (Or "ObjM2") An extension to Modula-2 for Cocoa and GNUstep software development. Objective Modula-2 follows the Objective-C object model and retains the bracketed Smalltalk message passing syntax used in Objective-C. Classes written in ObjM2 can be used within ObjC and vice versa. ObjM2 also retains Modula-2's data encapsulation features, namely nested modules with explicit import and export lists. Due to the strict type checking in Modula-2, ObjM2 can be considered a much safer programming language than is ObjC, yet losing none of the capabilities of ObjC.
- on the back burner — low priority
- passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
- play catch-up ball — to adjust one's style of play so as to make up for a lack of points, runs, etc.
- plumber's merchant — a shop or business that sells things needed for the job of installing and repairing pipes, fixtures, etc, for water, drainage, and gas
- population balance — A population balance is a model showing particle sizes during a grinding process, which is used when designing a process.
- provably difficult — The set or property of problems for which it can be proven that no polynomial-time algorithm exists, only exponential-time algorithms.