15-letter words containing c, a, b
- black horehound — a hairy unpleasant-smelling chiefly Mediterranean plant, Ballota nigra, having clusters of purple flowers: family Lamiaceae (labiates)
- black marketeer — A black marketeer is someone who sells goods on the black market.
- black mountains — a mountain range running from N Monmouthshire and SE Powys (Wales) to SW Herefordshire (England). Highest peak: Waun Fach, 811 m (2660 ft)
- black operation — a covert and undocumented military operation
- black raspberry — a plant, Rubus occidentalis, of E North America, that has black berry-like fruits
- black sea bream — a sparid fish, Spondyliosoma cantharus, found in N Europe and the Mediterranean
- black september — a Palestinian Terrorist group, responsible for the assassinations of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games at Munich in 1972
- black snakeroot — a tall bugbane, Cimicifuga racemosa, of the buttercup family, of eastern North America, having thin, tapering, toothed or deeply cut leaflets and branched clusters of small, white flowers.
- black-and-white — displaying only black and white tones; without color, as a picture or chart: a black-and-white photograph.
- black-marketeer — to sell articles in the black market.
- blackberry bush — a bush on which blackberries grow
- blackberry lily — an ornamental Chinese iridaceous plant, Belamcanda chinensis, that has red-spotted orange flowers and clusters of black seeds that resemble blackberries
- blackwall hitch — a knot for hooking tackle to the end of a rope, holding fast when pulled but otherwise loose
- bladder campion — a European caryophyllaceous plant, Silene vulgaris, having white flowers with an inflated calyx
- blagoveshchensk — a city and port in E Russia, in Siberia on the Amur River. Pop: 222 000 (2005 est)
- blanc de blancs — white wine, esp. champagne, made from white grapes
- blank cartridge — a cartridge containing powder but no bullet: used in battle practice or as a signal
- blast injection — the injection of liquid fuel directly into the cylinder of an internal-combustion engine using a blast of high-pressure air to atomize the spray of fuel
- blenheim palace — a palace in Woodstock in Oxfordshire: built (1705–22) by Sir John Vanbrugh for the 1st Duke of Marlborough as a reward from the nation for his victory at Blenheim; gardens laid out by Henry Wise and Capability Brown; birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill (1874)
- blockade runner — a person, ship etc that tries to carry goods through a blockade
- blockade-runner — a ship or person that passes through a blockade.
- blue cattle dog — an Australian breed of dog with a bluish coat, developed for herding cattle
- blueback salmon — sockeye salmon.
- boa constrictor — A boa constrictor is a large snake that kills animals by wrapping itself round their bodies and squeezing them to death. Boa constrictors are found mainly in South and Central America and the West Indies.
- board-certified — A doctor who is board-certified has passed tests and meets the standards of a board of specialists in their area of medicine.
- boarding school — A boarding school is a school which some or all of the pupils live in during the school term. Compare day school.
- book of account — a book to keep accounts in; ledger
- book of changes — an ancient Chinese book of divination, in which 64 pairs of trigrams are shown with various interpretations.
- borderline case — a person or thing that is not clearly classifiable as something
- borrower's card — a card issued by a library to individuals or organizations entitling them or their representatives to borrow materials.
- boston massacre — an outbreak (1770) in Boston against British troops, in which a few citizens were killed
- bowel complaint — bowel disease or condition
- box the compass — to name the compass points in order
- brachial plexus — a network of nerves in the armpits and neck, innervating the shoulders, arms, and hands.
- brachiocephalic — of, relating to, or supplying the arm and head
- brachistochrone — the curve between two points through which a body moves under the force of gravity in a shorter time than for any other curve; the path of quickest descent
- brachystomatous — having a short proboscis, as certain insects.
- brackett series — a series of lines in the infrared spectrum of hydrogen.
- brake parachute — a parachute attached to the rear of a vehicle and opened to assist braking
- branch and hang — (humour) (BRH) Originally a mythical instruction for the IBM 1130 at Indiana University. Later some real examples were discovered. The Texas Instruments TI-980 allowed all addressing modes with all instructions, including Store Immediate Extended (stores the value into the extension word of the instruction) and Branch and Link Immediate (makes a subroutine call to the same instruction -- Branch and Hang). Compare HCF.
- branchial cleft — Zoology. one of a series of slitlike openings in the walls of the pharynx between the branchial arches of fishes and aquatic amphibians through which water passes from the pharynx to the exterior.
- branchial pouch — one of a series of rudimentary outcroppings of the inner pharyngeal wall, corresponding to the branchial grooves on the surface.
- branching rules — rules that are used to break down a complex problem into several smaller problems
- branchiostegous — branchiostegal.
- bravais lattice — any of 14 possible space lattices found in crystals
- breach of faith — a violation of good faith, confidence, or trust; betrayal: To abandon your friends now would be a breach of faith.
- breach of trust — a violation of duty by a trustee or any other person in a fiduciary position
- breakdown cover — insurance cover against breakdowns in a vehicle
- breakeven chart — a graph measuring the value of an enterprise's revenue and costs against some index of its activity, such as percentage capacity. The intersection of the total revenue and total cost curves gives the breakeven point
- breathing space — A breathing space is a short period of time between two activities in which you can recover from the first activity and prepare for the second one.