15-letter words containing c, r, o, s, e
- arms inspection — the official checking of a country's weapons and other military equipment, usually to check that international agreements have been respected
- army air forces — a unit comprising almost all aviation, with its personnel, equipment, etc.: it became part of the Air Force on July 26, 1947.
- array processor — (processor) (Or "vector processor") A computer, or extension to its arithmetic unit, that is capable of performing simultaneous computations on elements of an array or table of data in some number of dimensions. The IBM AltiVec (the "Velocity Engine" used in the Apple G4 computers) is a vector processor. Common uses for array processors include analysis of fluid dynamics and rotation of 3d objects, as well as data retrieval, in which elements of a database are scanned simultaneously. Array processors are very rare now (1998).
- articles of war — the disciplinary and legal procedures by which the naval and military forces of Great Britain were bound before the 19th century
- asiatic cholera — cholera (def 1).
- at short notice — Notice is used in expressions such as 'at short notice', 'at a moment's notice' or 'at twenty-four hours' notice', to indicate that something can or must be done within a short period of time.
- at the controls — If someone is at the controls of a machine or other piece of equipment, they are operating it.
- at your service — You can use 'at your service' after your name as a formal way of introducing yourself to someone and saying that you are willing to help them in any way you can.
- atherosclerosis — a degenerative disease of the arteries characterized by patchy thickening of the inner lining of the arterial walls, caused by deposits of fatty material; a form of arteriosclerosis
- atherosclerotic — Of, pertaining to, or afflicted with atherosclerosis.
- athletic sports — sports, esp track and field events, in which athleticism is required
- atmospherically — pertaining to, existing in, or consisting of the atmosphere: atmospheric vapors.
- autodestructive — likely to cause one's own destruction
- autofluorescent — Of, pertaining to, or exhibiting autofluorescence.
- autostereoscopy — The display of stereoscopic images without the use of special viewing equipment.
- backup software — (tool, software) Software for doing a backup, often included as part of the operating system. Backup software should provide ways to specify what files get backed up and to where. It may include its own scheduling function to automate the procedure or, preferably, work with generic scheduling facilities. It may include facilities for managing the backup media (e.g. maintaining an index of tapes) and for restoring files from backups. Examples are Unix's dump command and Windows's ntbackup.
- bacterial ghost — a bacterial cell that is emptied and filled artificially with another substance
- bacteriophagous — Pertaining to the predation and consumption of bacterium.
- barn conversion — the adaptation of a farm barn into a building serving a different use, such as a house or commercial premises
- basic autocoder — Early system on IBM 7070. Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959).
- bathroom scales — scales typically kept in a bathroom for people to weigh themselves
- bear comparison — to be sufficiently similar in class or range to be compared with (something else), esp favourably
- ben day process — a method of adding texture, shading, or detail to line drawings by overlaying a transparent sheet of dots or any other pattern during platemaking
- bergius process — a method of hydrogenation formerly used with coal to produce an oil similar to petroleum.
- beta conversion — (theory) A term from lambda-calculus for beta reduction or beta abstraction.
- biodestructible — biodegradable
- biogeochemistry — the science of biological, chemical, and geological aspects of the environment
- bits per second — (communications, unit) (bps, b/s) The unit in which data rate is measured. For example, a modem's data rate is usually measured in kilobits per second. In 1996, the maximum modem speed for use on the PSTN was 33.6 kbps, rising to 56 kbps in 1997. Note that kilo- (k), mega- (M), etc. in data rates denote powers of 1000, not 1024.
- 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.
- blocked records — (storage) Several records written as a contiguous block on magnetic tape so that they may be accessed in a single I/O operation. Blocking increases the amount of data that may be stored on a tape because there are fewer inter-block gaps. It requires that the tape drive or processor have a sufficiently large buffer to store the whole block.
- blood corpuscle — one of the cells in the blood
- bloody butchers — a hardy plant, Trillium sessile, common from New York to Georgia and westward, having stalkless, purple or green flowers.
- blow one's cork — to lose one's temper; become enraged
- booster cushion — an extra seat or cushion placed on an existing seat for a child to sit on in a car
- 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
- boustrophedonic — of or relating to lines written in opposite directions
- 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
- branchiostegous — branchiostegal.
- breach of trust — a violation of duty by a trustee or any other person in a fiduciary position
- bristol channel — an inlet of the Atlantic, between S Wales and SW England, merging into the Severn estuary. Length: about 137 km (85 miles)
- british telecom — the popular name for British Telecommunications Group plc, the dominant fixed line telecommunications and broadband internet provider in the United Kingdom
- brocken specter — an optical phenomenon sometimes occurring at high altitudes when the image of an observer placed between the sun and a cloud is projected on the cloud as a greatly magnified shadow.
- bromoil process — a process for making an offset reproduction by first making a photographic print on paper with a silver bromide emulsion, wetting it, and then using it as a lithographic plate, the lighter parts of the emulsion tending to repel the oil base of the ink and the darker parts tending to hold it.
- bronchial tubes — the bronchi or their smaller divisions
- bullock's heart — the large, edible fruit of a tropical American tree, Annona reticulata.
- bullock's-heart — the large, edible fruit of a tropical American tree, Annona reticulata.
- butcher's-broom — a liliaceous evergreen shrub, Ruscus aculeatus, that has stiff prickle-tipped flattened green stems, which resemble and function as true leaves. The plant was formerly used for making brooms
- caernarvonshire — (until 1974) a county of NW Wales, now part of Gwynedd