17-letter words containing b, y, r
- butterfly closure — an adhesive bandage resembling the shape of a butterfly's outstretched wings, used for closing minor cuts.
- butterfly diagram — a graphical butterfly-shaped representation of the sunspot density on the solar disc in the 11-year sunspot cycle
- buyers' inflation — inflation in which rising demand results in a rise in prices.
- by return of post — by the next mail in the opposite direction
- cabbage butterfly — a common white butterfly (Pieris rapae) whose green larvae feed upon cabbage and related plants
- call-by-reference — (programming) An argument passing convention where the address of an argument variable is passed to a function or procedure, as opposed to passing the value of the argument expression. Execution of the function or procedure may have side-effects on the actual argument as seen by the caller. The C language's "&" (address of) and "*" (dereference) operators allow the programmer to code explicit call-by-reference. Other languages provide special syntax to declare reference arguments (e.g. ALGOL 60). See also call-by-name, call-by-value, call-by-value-result.
- camberwell beauty — a nymphalid butterfly, Nymphalis antiopa, of temperate regions, having dark purple wings with cream-yellow borders
- canarybird flower — a nasturtium, Tropaeolum peregrinum, of Peru, having round, deeply lobed leaves and yellow flowers.
- carbonyl chloride — phosgene
- carboxyhemoglobin — a compound formed in the blood when carbon monoxide occupies the positions on the hemoglobin molecule normally taken by oxygen, resulting in cellular oxygen starvation
- celebrity wedding — a wedding of famous people, usually reported at length in celebrity magazines
- chicklet keyboard — (spelling) It's spelled "chiclet keyboard".
- churchyard beetle — a blackish nocturnal ground beetle, Blaps mucronata, found in cellars and similar places
- city of gibraltar — a city on the Rock of Gibraltar, a limestone promontory at the tip of S Spain: settled by Moors in 711 and taken by Spain in 1462; ceded to Britain in 1713; a British crown colony (1830–1969), still politically associated with Britain; a naval and air base of strategic importance. Pop: 29 111 (2013 est). Area: 6.5 sq km (2.5 sq miles)
- combinatory logic — (logic) A system for reducing the operational notation of logic, mathematics or a functional language to a sequence of modifications to the input data structure. First introduced in the 1920's by Schoenfinkel. Re-introduced independently by Haskell Curry in the late 1920's (who quickly learned of Schoenfinkel's work after he had the idea). Curry is really responsible for most of the development, at least up until work with Feys in 1958. See combinator.
- common of turbary — (in England) the legal right to cut peat for fuel on a common
- comprehensibility — capable of being comprehended or understood; intelligible.
- cry in one's beer — to lament or complain in a maudlin manner
- cypriot syllabary — a syllabic script in use on Cyprus in the first millennium b.c., used for the writing of Greek and of an unknown language.
- cyrillic alphabet — the alphabet derived from that of the Greeks, supposedly by Saint Cyril, for the writing of Slavonic languages: now used primarily for Russian, Bulgarian, and the Serbian dialect of Serbo-Croat
- cytotrophoblastic — Relating to, or containing, cytotrophoblasts.
- deoxyribonuclease — DNase.
- desoxyribonucleic — Alternative spelling of deoxyribonucleic.
- dicarboxylic acid — any carboxylic acid that contains two carboxyl groups per molecule
- differentiability — The ability to be differentiated.
- disrespectability — Lack of respectability.
- double pair royal — a set of four cards of the same denomination, worth 12 points.
- downward mobility — movement from one social level to a higher one (upward mobility) or a lower one (downward mobility) as by changing jobs or marrying.
- downwardly mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
- downwardly-mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
- drive-by download — an incidence of an unwanted program being automatically downloaded to a computer, often without the user's knowledge
- drive-by shooting — an incident in which a person, building, or vehicle is shot at by someone in a moving vehicle
- dwarf huckleberry — tangleberry.
- egyptian brackets — (programming, humour) A humourous term for K&R indent style, referring to the "one hand up in front, one down behind" pose which popular culture inexplicably associates with Egypt.
- electricity board — a company which supplies electricity
- embroidery thread — a thread used for embroidery
- eyelet embroidery — a piece of embroidery decorated with such work
- four-rowed barley — a class of barley having, in each spike, six rows of grain, with two pairs of rows overlapping.
- free-body diagram — A free-body diagram is a diagram of a structure in which all supports are replaced by forces.
- gamblers' fallacy — the fallacy that in a series of chance events the probability of one event occurring increases with the number of times another event has occurred in succession
- gamma-ray burster — a source of gamma-ray bursts
- garden strawberry — a plant which has white flowers and red edible fruits and is spread by runners, Fragaria ananassa
- gibbs free energy — the thermodynamic function of a system that is equal to its enthalpy minus the product of its absolute temperture and entropy: a decrease in the function is equal to the maximum amount of work available exclusive of that due to pressure times volume change during a reversible, isothermal, isobaric process.
- glastonbury chair — a folding chair having legs crossed front-to-back and having arms connected to the back and to the front seat rail.
- globus hystericus — the sensation of having a lump in the throat or difficulty in swallowing for which no medical cause can be found.
- harvey wallbanger — a screwdriver cocktail topped with Galliano.
- henry cabot lodge — Henry Cabot, 1850–1924, U.S. public servant and author: senator 1893–1924.
- hybrid fiber coax — (networking) (HFC) A kind of physical connection used in networks for audio, video, and data. DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) is used in Europe and DOCSIS is used in N America.
- hydrofluorocarbon — Any of a class of partly chlorinated and fluorinated hydrocarbons, used as an alternative to chlorofluorocarbons in foam production, refrigeration, and other processes.
- hyperbolic cosine — one of a group of functions of an angle expressed as a relationship between the distances of a point on a hyperbola to the origin and to the coordinate axes; cosh