12-letter words containing b, w, r
- bowel cancer — cancer of the colon
- brainwashing — the process of brainwashing.
- branch water — water from a stream, as opposed to mineral or soda water
- braunschweig — Brunswick
- breadwinning — a person who earns a livelihood, especially one who also supports dependents.
- breakweather — any makeshift shelter.
- breast wheel — a waterwheel onto which the propelling water is fed at the height of a horizontal axle.
- british warm — an army officer's short thick overcoat
- brochureware — (jargon, business) A planned, but non-existent, product, like vaporware but with the added implication that marketing is actively selling and promoting it (they've printed brochures). Brochureware is often deployed to con customers into not committing to a competing existing product. The term is now especially applicable to new websites, website revisions, and ancillary services such as customer support and product return. Owing to the explosion of database-driven, cookie-using dot-coms (of the sort that can now deduce that you are, in fact, a dog), the term is now also used to describe sites made up of static HTML pages that contain not much more than contact info and mission statements. The term suggests that the company is small, irrelevant to the web, local in scope, clueless, broke, just starting out, or some combination thereof. Many new companies without product, funding, or even staff, post brochureware with investor info and press releases to help publicise their ventures. As of December 1999, examples include pop.com and cdradio.com. Small-timers that really have no business on the web such as lawncare companies and divorce laywers inexplicably have brochureware made that stays unchanged for years.
- broken arrow — a town in NE Oklahoma.
- broken water — a patch of water whose surface is rippled or choppy, usually surrounded by relatively calm water.
- brooks's law — (programming) "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" - a result of the fact that the expected advantage from splitting work among N programmers is O(N) (that is, proportional to N), but the complexity and communications cost associated with coordinating and then merging their work is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the square of N). The quote is from Fred Brooks, a manager of IBM's OS/360 project and author of "The Mythical Man-Month". The myth in question has been most tersely expressed as "Programmer time is fungible" and Brooks established conclusively that it is not. Hackers have never forgotten his advice; too often, management still does. See also creationism, second-system effect, optimism.
- brown bag it — to bring (one's own liquor) to a restaurant or club, especially one that has no liquor license.
- brown bagger — to bring (one's own liquor) to a restaurant or club, especially one that has no liquor license.
- brown butter — beurre noir.
- brown canker — a fungous disease of roses, characterized by leaf and flower lesions, stem cankers surrounded by a reddish-purple border, and dieback.
- brown hackle — an artificial fly having a peacock herl body, golden tag and tail, and brown hackle.
- brown-nosing — If you accuse someone of brown-nosing, you are saying in a rather offensive way that they are agreeing with someone important in order to get their support.
- browser skin — a changeable decorative background for a browser
- brush flower — a flower or inflorescence with numerous long stamens, usually pollinated by birds or bats
- buying power — the amount of services or goods a company, person, group or currency is able to purchase
- buying-power — Also called buying power. the ability to purchase goods and services.
- by-a-whisker — whiskers, a beard.
- bzzzt, wrong — (jargon) /bzt rong/ (Usenet, Internet) From the flim "Dead Poets Society", spoofing quiz shows such as "Truth or Consequences" where an incorrect answer earns a blast from the buzzer. An expression of mock-rude disagreement, often following a quote from another poster in a forum. The less abbreviated "*Bzzzzt*, wrong, but thank you for playing" is also common.
- cassel brown — Vandyke brown.
- crumble away — disintegrate
- delaware bay — an inlet of the Atlantic at the mouth of the Delaware river
- dessert bowl — A dessert bowl is a bowl in which a dessert is served.
- double crown — a size of printing paper, 20 × 30 inches (51 × 76 cm).
- draw a blank — (of paper or other writing surface) having no marks; not written or printed on: a blank sheet of paper.
- drawbar pull — the force, measured in pounds, available to a locomotive for pulling rolling stock after overcoming its own tractive resistance.
- drawn butter — melted butter, clarified and often seasoned with herbs or lemon juice.
- early hebrew — noting or pertaining to the alphabetical script used for the writing of Hebrew mainly from the 11th to the 6th centuries b.c.
- edward abbey — Edward, 1927–89, U.S. novelist and nature writer.
- elbow grease — physical effort
- fall webworm — the larva of any of several moths, as Hyphantria cunea (fall webworm) or Loxostege similalis (garden webworm) which spins a web over the foliage on which it feeds.
- flow breccia — a volcanic breccia that has solidified from a lava flow.
- forward bias — a voltage applied to a circuit or device, esp a semiconductor device, in the direction that produces the larger current
- fribble away — to use wastefully
- gallows bird — a person who deserves to be hanged.
- globeflowers — Plural form of globeflower.
- go-away bird — a common name for a grey-plumaged lourie of the genus Corythaixoides
- golden-brown — of brown with a golden tinge
- gollywobbler — a very large quadrilateral staysail set between the foremast and mainmast of a schooner.
- grey warbler — a small bush bird that hatches the eggs of the shining cuckoo
- hare wallaby — a wallaby of the genus Lagorchestes
- havana brown — a breed of medium-sized cat with large eyes, large ears, and a sleek brown coat
- hawk's beard — any of various plants of the genus Crepis, of the daisy family, resembling the dandelion but having a branched stem with several flowers.
- hawk's-beard — any of various plants of the genus Crepis, of the daisy family, resembling the dandelion but having a branched stem with several flowers.
- in-betweener — a person or thing that is between two extremes, two contrasting conditions, etc.: yeses, noes, and in-betweens; a tournament for professional, amateur, and in-between.