17-letter words containing c, u, t, e
- bachelor's-button — any of various plants with round flower heads, especially the cornflower.
- background report — a report on someone or something that sheds light on their background, esp a report on the background of a person convicted of a crime before they are sentenced by a judge
- balance of nature — the stable state in which natural communities of animals and plants exist, maintained by adaptation, competition, and other interactions between members of the communit ies and their nonliving environment
- bankruptcy estate — all of the interests that a debtor has at the start of a bankruptcy case
- barkhausen effect — the phenomenon of short, sudden changes in the magnetism of a ferromagnetic substance occurring when the intensity of the magnetizing field is continuously altered.
- battle-ax culture — a late Neolithic to Copper Age culture of northern Europe marked especially by the production of pottery bearing the imprint of cord and by the use of battle-axes as burial accouterments.
- bbc microcomputer — A series of 6502-based personal computers launched by Acorn Computers Ltd. in January 1982, for use in the British Broadcasting Corporation's educational programmes on computing. The computers are noted for their reliability (many are still in active service in 1994) and both hardware and software were designed for easy expansion. The 6502-based computers were succeeded in 1987 by the Acorn Archimedes family.
- be just sb's luck — If you say it is just your luck that something unpleasant has happened to you, you mean that this is quite normal because unpleasant things are always happening to you.
- beat to the punch — to be quicker than (another) in doing something, as in striking a blow
- beauty specialist — a person who helps someone to improve their beauty, such as a make-up artist
- bermuda buttercup — a bulbous plant, Oxalis pescaprae, native to southern Africa, having nodding, yellow flowers.
- biopharmaceutical — of or relating to drugs produced using biotechnology
- blue dog democrat — a fiscally conservative member of the Democratic Party
- bluegrass country — region in central Ky. where there is much bluegrass
- bouncebackability — the ability to recover after a setback, esp in sport
- bowel obstruction — a blockage in the bowel
- brokerage account — A brokerage account is an account with a broker where an investor can buy and sell and hold securities.
- budgetary control — a system of managing a business by applying a financial value to each forecast activity. Actual performance is subsequently compared with the estimates
- budgetary deficit — the amount by which government expenditure exceeds income from taxation, customs duties, etc, in any one fiscal year
- bulbous buttercup — a European buttercup, Ranunculus bulbosus, having yellow flowers in irregular branching clusters: a common weed in North America.
- buncher resonator — See under Klystron.
- bureau of customs — former name of the United States Customs Service.
- bureaucratization — to divide an administrative agency or office into bureaus.
- butacaine sulfate — a colorless, crystalline substance, (C18H30N2O2)2·H2SO4, used as a local anesthetic, esp. on mucous membranes
- butterfly closure — an adhesive bandage resembling the shape of a butterfly's outstretched wings, used for closing minor cuts.
- buttock-clenching — making one tighten the buttocks through extreme fear or embarrassment
- buttonhole stitch — a reinforcing looped stitch for the edge of material, such as around a buttonhole
- cabbage butterfly — a common white butterfly (Pieris rapae) whose green larvae feed upon cabbage and related plants
- café-au-lait spot — a brown patch on the skin that can occur normally in small numbers or in neurofibromatosis, when they are more numerous
- calcium carbonate — a white crystalline salt occurring in limestone, chalk, marble, calcite, coral, and pearl: used in the production of lime and cement. Formula: CaCO3
- calcium gluconate — a white, tasteless, water-soluble powder, CaC 12 H 22 O 14 , used as a dietary supplement to provide calcium.
- calcium phosphate — the insoluble nonacid calcium salt of orthophosphoric acid (phosphoric(V) acid): it occurs in bones and is the main constituent of bone ash. Formula: Ca3(PO4)2
- california nutmeg — a tall, pungently aromatic California evergreen tree, Torreya californica, of the yew family, having a fissured, gray-brown bark and small, purple-streaked, green fruit.
- camberwell beauty — a nymphalid butterfly, Nymphalis antiopa, of temperate regions, having dark purple wings with cream-yellow borders
- campus university — a university in which the buildings, often including shops and cafés, are all on one site
- cannot choose but — to be obliged to
- capacity audience — a situation when the maximum number of people possible are watching an event
- cape horn current — the part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing E at Cape Horn.
- capital equipment — the equipment that a business buys
- capital structure — the way that a company finances its assets through a combination of equity, debt etc
- caribbean current — an ocean current flowing westward through the Caribbean Sea.
- carlos de austria — Don [dawn] /dɔn/ (Show IPA), 1545–68, eldest son of Philip II of Spain: died during imprisonment for conspiracy against his father.
- cartesian product — the set of all ordered pairs of members of two given sets. The product A × B is the set of all pairs <a, b> where a is a member of A and b is a member of B
- case-study method — Also called case-study method [keys-stuhd-ee] /ˈkeɪsˈstʌd i/ (Show IPA). the teaching or elucidation of a subject or issue through analysis and discussion of actual cases, as in business education.
- cast/run your eye — If you cast your eye or run your eye over something, you look at it or read it quickly.
- castilla la nueva — Spanish name of New Castile.
- casting the runes — (jargon) What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program because it never works for anyone else; especially used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does. Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight.
- catapult-launched — (of aircraft) launched into the air by a device installed in warships
- caudal anesthesia — anesthesia below the pelvis, induced by injecting an anesthetic into the sacral portion of the spinal canal.
- celestial equator — the great circle lying on the celestial sphere, the plane of which is perpendicular to the line joining the north and south celestial poles