21-letter words containing b, u, c, o
- luck was on sb's side — If you say that luck was on someone's side, you mean that they succeeded in something by chance as well as by their own efforts or ability.
- national public radio — a nationwide network of nonprofit radio stations supported in part by U.S. government funds distributed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, often affiliated with a public television station or educational institution. Abbreviation: NPR.
- negotiable securities — securities that are legally transferable in title from one party to another
- night-blooming cereus — any of various cacti of the genera Hylocereus, Peniocereus, Nyctocereus, or Selenicereus, having large, usually white flowers that open at night.
- not care a hang about — to not care the least bit about
- object request broker — (programming) (ORB) Part of the OMG CORBA specification, an ORB's basic function is to pass method invocation requests to the correct objects and return the results to the caller. To achieve this the ORB must be able must be able to identify and locate objects, handle connections from invoker and the data returned from methods. Communication between the ORB and applications are achieved through IDL stubs and skeletons whilst the OMG has specified IIOP as the protocol through which ORBs may communicate with each other. Using IIOP, an ORB may request method invocations from a remote object.
- oblique circular cone — a cone whose surface is generated by lines joining a fixed point to the points of a circle, the fixed point lying on a line that is not perpendicular to the circle at its center.
- optical double (star) — double star (sense 2)
- potassium bicarbonate — a white, crystalline, slightly alkaline, salty-tasting, water-soluble powder, KHCO 3 , produced by the passage of carbon dioxide through an aqueous potassium carbonate solution: used in cookery as a leavening agent and in medicine as an antacid.
- printed circuit board — a circuit in which the interconnecting conductors and some of the circuit components have been printed, etched, etc., onto a sheet or board of dielectric material (PC board, printed-circuit board)
- public administration — the implementation of public policy, largely by the executive branch.
- public transportation — means of fare-paying travel
- public-key encryption — (cryptography) (PKE, Or "public-key cryptography") An encryption scheme, introduced by Diffie and Hellman in 1976, where each person gets a pair of keys, called the public key and the private key. Each person's public key is published while the private key is kept secret. Messages are encrypted using the intended recipient's public key and can only be decrypted using his private key. This is often used in conjunction with a digital signature. The need for sender and receiver to share secret information (keys) via some secure channel is eliminated: all communications involve only public keys, and no private key is ever transmitted or shared. Public-key encryption can be used for authentication, confidentiality, integrity and non-repudiation. See also knapsack problem.
- push the panic button — an alarm button for use in an emergency, as to summon help.
- put someone's back up — to annoy someone
- rectangular hyperbola — a hyperbola with perpendicular asymptotes
- reverberatory furnace — See at reverberatory (def 2).
- saponification number — the number of milligrams of potassium hydroxide required to saponify one gram of a given ester, especially a glyceride.
- satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
- snr bandwidth product — (communications) The integral of the SNR over frequency. The SNR bandwidth product is an important limit in the capacity of a communication channel.
- space shuttle orbiter — orbiter (def 1).
- spicebush swallowtail — a swallowtail butterfly, Papilio troilus, having a dark body with yellow spots on the forewings and greenish hind wings.
- subjective complement — subject complement.
- subliminal perception — perception of or reaction to a stimulus that occurs without awareness or consciousness
- subsistence allowance — money given in advance to a new soldier, employee, etc., to buy food, clothing, and pay for other necessities while awaiting a first pay.
- substitution instance — an expression so derived from another
- substitution reaction — the replacement of an atom or group of atoms in a compound by another atom or group.
- tetrabromofluorescein — eosin (def 1).
- the best of the bunch — If you say someone or something is the best of the bunch or the pick of the bunch, you mean they are the best of a group of people or things.
- throw sb a curve ball — If someone throws you a curve or throws you a curve ball, they surprise you by doing something that you do not expect.
- to be hard luck on sb — to be unfortunate or unlucky for someone
- to be public property — to be publicly owned
- to change the subject — When someone involved in a conversation changes the subject, they start talking about something else, often because the previous subject was embarrassing.
- vasco nunez de balboa — Vasco Núñez de [bahs-kaw noo-nyeth th e] /ˈbɑs kɔ ˈnu nyɛθ ðɛ/ (Show IPA), 1475?–1517, Spanish adventurer and explorer who discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513.
- writ of habeas corpus — law: petition for hearing