13-letter words containing c, r, a, n, b
- bargain price — a low price
- baritone clef — an F clef locating F below middle C on the third line of the staff.
- barnacle code — (programming, humour) Any piece of code (usually a static method) that has been appended to a class where it doesn't logically belong, due to a lack of anywhere else to put it.
- baroclinicity — a common state of fluid stratification in which surfaces of constant pressure and others of constant density are not parallel but intersect.
- basement-rock — the undifferentiated assemblage of rock (basement rock) underlying the oldest stratified rocks in any region: usually crystalline, metamorphosed, and mostly, but not necessarily, Precambrian in age.
- basic fortran — (language) A subset of Fortran.
- bass clarinet — a clarinet with the lowest range, in the octave below the B-flat clarinet
- batrachotoxin — a steroidal alkaloid, C31H42N2O6, found in the skin of certain Neotropical frogs (genus Phyllobates) and used on poison arrows: one of the most powerful natural neurotoxins known
- beanbag chair — a chair like a large beanbag covered with vinyl, fabric, etc. and filled with foam pellets, as of polystyrene, that shift about to fit one's body
- bench warrant — a warrant issued by a judge or court directing that an offender be apprehended
- beneficiary's — a person or group that receives benefits, profits, or advantages.
- berchtesgaden — a town in Germany, in SE Bavaria: site of the fortified mountain retreat of Adolf Hitler. Pop: 7667 (2003 est)
- beta carotene — a yellowish form of carotene: a dietary deficiency of this is associated with a greater risk of certain cancers
- beta-carotene — the most abundant of various isomers of carotene, C 40 H 56 , that can be converted by the body to vitamin A.
- beyond recall — If something is beyond recall, it is no longer possible to remember how it was or to bring it back to its original condition.
- bib and brace — a work garment consisting of trousers and an upper front part supported by straps over the shoulders
- bidirectional — (of a printhead) capable of printing from left to right and from right to left
- binary search — (algorithm) A search algorithm which repeatedly divides an ordered search space in half according to how the required (key) value compares with the middle element. The following pseudo-C routine performs a binary search return the index of the element of vector "thing[first..last]" equal to "target": if (target < thing[first] || target > thing[last]) return NOT_FOUND; while (first < last) { mid = (first+last)/2; /* truncate to integer */ if (target == thing[mid]) return mid; if (target < thing[mid]) last = mid-1; else first = mid+1; } if (target == thing[last]) return last; return NOT_FOUND; (2003-01-14)
- bird-watching — Bird-watching is the activity of watching and studying wild birds in their natural surroundings.
- birectangular — having two right angles.
- black country — a district in the English Midlands, around Birmingham: so called from the soot and grime produced by the many local industries.
- black currant — the small, round, blackish, edible fruit of a widely cultivated shrub, Ribes nigrum, of the saxifrage family.
- black panther — (in the US) a member of a militant Black political party (1965–82) founded to end the political dominance of White people
- black russian — a drink made from one part coffee liqueur and two parts vodka, served over ice.
- blast furnace — A blast furnace is a large structure in which iron ore is heated under pressure so that it melts and the pure iron metal separates out and can be collected.
- boarding card — A boarding card is a card which a passenger must have when boarding a plane or a boat.
- body snatcher — (formerly) a person who robbed graves and sold the corpses for dissection
- bonanza creek — a stream in W Yukon Territory, Canada, flowing NW to the Klondike River near Dawson: gold strike 1896. 20 miles (32 km) long.
- boraginaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Boraginaceae, a family of temperate and tropical typically hairy-leaved flowering plants that includes forget-me-not, lungwort, borage, comfrey, and heliotrope
- boron carbide — a black extremely hard inert substance having a high capture cross section for thermal neutrons. It is used as an abrasive, refractory, and in control rods in nuclear reactors. Formula: B4C
- bounce around — to spring back from a surface in a lively manner: The ball bounced off the wall.
- boundary scan — The use of scan registers to capture state from device input and output pins. IEEE Standard 1149.1-1990 describes the international standard implementation (sometimes called JTAG after the Joint Test Action Group which began the standardisation work).
- brace and bit — a hand tool for boring holes, consisting of a cranked handle into which a drilling bit is inserted
- brace molding — keel1 (def 6).
- brachycranial — brachycephalic
- brain scanner — a machine used to perform brain scans
- brain-picking — the act of obtaining information or ideas by questioning another person.
- branch office — the local branch of a bank, shop, or other business
- branch rickey — (Wesley) Branch, 1881–1965, U.S. baseball executive.
- break dancing — a style of dance engaged in by youths, involving acrobatic movements, spinning about on the head or shoulders, etc.
- breast cancer — cancer affecting the breasts
- breechloading — loaded at the breech.
- brilliant cut — a cut for gems
- brilliant-cut — a cut intended to enhance the brilliance of a gem with the least possible sacrifice of weight, characterized by a form resembling two pyramids set base to base, truncated so as to give a broad table and a very small culet, and having from 18 to 104 facets, 58 being typical.
- bronchography — radiography of the bronchial tubes after the introduction of a radiopaque medium into the bronchi
- buccaneerings — the characteristic actions of a buccaneer
- buck sergeant — a newly promoted sergeant
- buoyant force — the law that a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force (buoyant force) equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body.
- burnham scale — the salary scale for teachers in English state schools, which is revised periodically
- business card — A person's business card or their card is a small card which they give to other people, and which has their name and details of their job and company printed on it.