14-letter words containing c, u, b, e
- bengal catechu — catechu.
- berberidaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Berberidaceae, a mainly N temperate family of flowering plants (mostly shrubs), including barberry and barrenwort
- bermuda collar — a narrow, pointed collar on a woman's dress or blouse
- bermuda cutter — a marconi-rigged cutter.
- beta reduction — [lambda-calculus] The application of a lambda abstraction to an argument expression. A copy of the body of the lambda abstraction is made and occurrences of the bound variable being replaced by the argument. E.g. (\ x . x+1) 4 --> 4+1 Beta reduction is the only kind of reduction in the pure lambda-calculus. The opposite of beta reduction is beta abstraction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion. See also name capture.
- beta structure — a secondary structure occurring in many proteins, consisting of several polypeptide chains running in parallel or alternating directions and joined by intermolecular hydrogen bonds, creating a flexible, strong arrangement.
- bezier surface — (graphics) A surface defined by mathematical formulae, used in computer graphics. A surface P(u, v), where u and v vary orthogonally from 0 to 1 from one edge of the surface to the other, is defined by a set of (n+1)*(m+1) "control points" (X(i, j), Y(i, j), Z(i, j)) for i = 0 to n, j = 0 to m.
- bib and tucker — an outfit of clothes (esp in the phrase best bib and tucker)
- bicuspid valve — mitral valve
- binary counter — (electronics, hardware) A digital circuit which has a clock input and a number of count outputs which give the number of clock cycles. The output may change either on rising or falling clock edges. The circuit may also have a reset input which sets all outputs to zero when asserted. The counter may be either a synchronous counter or a ripple counter.
- bioaeronautics — the use of aircraft in the discovery, development, and protection of natural and biological resources
- bioequivalence — the equality of strength, bioavailability, and dosage of various drug products
- bioluminescent — the production of light by living organisms.
- bircher muesli — a type of muesli containing softened oats, dried fruit, and apple
- biscuit barrel — an airtight container of circular section equipped with a lid and used for storing biscuits
- black and blue — discolored, as by bruising; exhibiting ecchymosis: a black-and-blue mark on my knee.
- black bullhead — a common freshwater catfish, Ictalurus melas, of North America, considered by some to be a food delicacy.
- black mulberry — a small deciduous tree, Morus nigra, with small leaves, producing edible fruit
- black selenium — an allotropic form of selenium occurring as a black, amorphous, water-insoluble, light-sensitive powder: used chiefly in photoelectric cells.
- black squirrel — a fox squirrel or gray squirrel in that color phase in which the fur is black.
- black-and-blue — (of the skin) discoloured, as from a bruise
- bloc québécois — (in Canada) a political party that advocates autonomy for Quebec
- bone structure — the skeletal composition of a human or animal
- boston lettuce — a type of butterhead lettuce
- boulder canyon — a canyon of the Colorado River between Arizona and Nevada, above Boulder Dam.
- bounce message — A notification message returned to the sender by a site unable to relay e-mail to the intended recipient or the next link in a bang path. Reasons might include a nonexistent or misspelled user name or a down relay site. Bounce messages can themselves fail, with occasionally ugly results; see sorcerer's apprentice mode and software laser. The terms "bounce mail" and "barfmail" are also common.
- boundary fence — a fence between properties
- bracket fungus — any saprotroph or parasitic fungus of the basidiomycetous family Polyporaceae, growing as a shelflike mass (bracket) from tree trunks and producing spores in vertical tubes in the bracket
- brass knuckles — linked metal rings or a metal bar with holes for the fingers, worn for rough fighting
- braunschweiger — a smoked liver sausage, named after the city of Braunschweig
- brazil current — a warm current in the Atlantic Ocean flowing SE along the E coast of Brazil.
- bread poultice — a poultice made from breadcrumbs
- breakfast club — a service that provides a breakfast for children who arrive early at school
- bridge circuit — any of several networks, such as a Wheatstone bridge, consisting of two branches across which a measuring device is connected. The resistance, capacitance, etc, of one component can be determined from the known values of the others when the voltage in each branch is balanced
- broad-spectrum — effective against a wide variety of diseases or microorganisms
- bronchial tube — Your bronchial tubes are the two tubes which connect your windpipe to your lungs.
- brunswick stew — a stew originally made with squirrel and onions, and now usually with rabbit or chicken and corn, okra, onions, tomatoes, lima beans, etc.
- brushed cotton — cotton fabric that is brushed to remove excess lint and fibres to leave a soft, smooth finish
- bubble chamber — a device that enables the tracks of ionizing particles to be photographed as a row of bubbles in a superheated liquid. Immediately before the particles enter the chamber the pressure is reduced so that the ionized particles act as centres for small vapour bubbles
- bubble company — a company whose shares are highly valued and then plummet
- bubonic plague — Bubonic plague is a serious infectious disease spread by rats. It killed many people during the Middle Ages.
- buchner funnel — a laboratory filter funnel used under reduced pressure. It consists of a shallow porcelain cylinder with a flat perforated base
- bucket brigade — a line of persons passing buckets of water along in trying to put out a fire
- buckwheat cake — a pancake made of buckwheat flour.
- buckwheat coal — anthracite coal in sizes ranging from 5/16 to 9/16 inch (7.9 to 13.9 m).
- buckwheat note — shape note.
- budget account — an account with a department store, etc, enabling a customer to make monthly payments to cover his or her past and future purchases
- budget deficit — the amount by which government expenditure exceeds income from taxation, customs duties, etc, in any one fiscal year
- bug-compatible — Said of a design or revision that has been badly compromised by a requirement to be compatible with fossils or misfeatures in other programs or (especially) previous releases of itself. "MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path separator to be bug-compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an option character in 1.0."
- bull stretcher — Also called bullnose stretcher. a brick having one of the edges along its length rounded for laying as a stretcher in a sill or the like.