12-letter words containing c, e, m, b
- blastomycete — any of a genus (Blastomyces) of yeastlike imperfect fungi that cause diseases in people and animals
- block system — the system whereby a railway is divided up into separate sections of track where only one train can travel at a time
- bombacaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Bombacaceae, a family of tropical trees, including the kapok tree and baobab, that have very thick stems, often with water-storing tissue
- bombe glacée — a dessert of ice cream lined or filled with custard, cake crumbs, etc
- bonus scheme — a scheme in a company or other organization according to which employees receive a bonus if they meet specified targets
- booch method — (programming) A widely used object-oriented analysis and object-oriented design method.
- book matches — safety matches made of paper and fastened into a small cardboard folder
- braced frame — a building frame employing a heavy, braced framework of solid girts mortised into solid posts the full height of the frame, with studs one story high filling the interstices.
- bracket lamp — a wall light that is attached to the wall by a bracket
- bromoacetone — a colorless and highly toxic liquid, CH 2 BrCOCH 3 , used as a lachrymatory compound in tear gas and chemical warfare gas.
- bumping race — (esp at Oxford and Cambridge) a race in which rowing eights start an equal distance one behind the other and each tries to bump the boat in front
- bur cucumber — a climbing vine, Sicyos angulatus, of the gourd family, of eastern and midwestern North America, having leaves with pointed lobes, small white or greenish flowers, and clusters of prickly fruits.
- by my certie — assuredly
- cabbage moth — a common brownish noctuid moth, Mamestra brassicae, the larva of which is destructive of cabbages and other plants
- cabbage palm — a West Indian palm, Roystonea (or Oreodoxa) oleracea, whose leaf buds are eaten like cabbage
- cabinetmaker — A cabinetmaker is a person who makes high-quality wooden furniture.
- call-by-name — (reduction) (CBN) (Normal order reduction, leftmost, outermost reduction). An argument passing convention (first provided by ALGOL 60?) where argument expressions are passed unevaluated. This is usually implemented by passing a pointer to a thunk - some code which will return the value of the argument and an environment giving the values of its free variables. This evaluation strategy is guaranteed to reach a normal form if one exists. When used to implement functional programming languages, call-by-name is usually combined with graph reduction to avoid repeated evaluation of the same expression. This is then known as call-by-need. The opposite of call-by-name is call-by-value where arguments are evaluated before they are passed to a function. This is more efficient but is less likely to terminate in the presence of infinite data structures and recursive functions. Arguments to macros are usually passed using call-by-name.
- camber piece — a centering for a flat arch, slightly crowned to allow for settling of the arch.
- carbamylurea — biuret.
- chamber tomb — a prehistoric tomb with a chamber inside it in which the body of an important person was laid to rest
- chamberlains — Plural form of chamberlain.
- chambermaids — Plural form of chambermaid.
- chambersburg — a city in central Pennsylvania.
- checkerbloom — a Californian malvaceous plant, Sidalcea malvaeflora, with pink or purple flowers
- chimneyboard — a partition or a cover to shut off a fireplace
- circumboreal — of or having to do with plants and animals inhabiting boreal regions of North America and Eurasia
- circumscribe — If someone's power or freedom is circumscribed, it is limited or restricted.
- clavicembalo — a harpsichord.
- clean-limbed — having well-proportioned limbs
- close combat — the act of fighting at close quarters
- cluster bomb — A cluster bomb is a type of bomb which is dropped from an aircraft. It contains a large number of smaller bombs that spread out before they hit the ground.
- cobaltammine — any of the various complex derivatives of cobalt containing one or more molecules of ammonia bonded to the cobalt.
- collembolans — Plural form of collembolan.
- collembolous — of or relating to colembolans
- combat knife — a large knife for military use
- combat-ready — ready for combat
- comber board — (in weaving) a wooden frame pierced with a series of small holes through which the harness cords are threaded, used to regulate the cords and determine the texture and width of a repeat in a fabric.
- combustibles — Plural form of combustible.
- come back to — If you come back to a topic or point, you talk about it again later.
- come between — If someone or something comes between two people, or comes between a person and a thing, they make the relationship or connection between them less close or happy.
- comfortables — Plural form of comfortable.
- commemorable — worthy of being commemorated
- commiserable — worthy of commiseration; pitiable
- common zebra — Equus burchelli, the most common type of zebra
- communicable — A communicable disease is one that can be passed on to other people.
- complainable — That may be complained of.
- compoundable — That can be compounded.
- compressible — If something is compressible, its volume can change when pressure is applied to it.
- computer bus — bus
- contaminable — to make impure or unsuitable by contact or mixture with something unclean, bad, etc.: to contaminate a lake with sewage.