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10-letter words containing c, u

  • bit bucket — (jargon)   1. (Or "write-only memory", "WOM") The universal data sink (originally, the mythical receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end of a register during a shift instruction). Discarded, lost, or destroyed data is said to have "gone to the bit bucket". On Unix, often used for /dev/null. Sometimes amplified as "the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky". 2. The place where all lost mail and news messages eventually go. The selection is performed according to Finagle's Law; important mail is much more likely to end up in the bit bucket than junk mail, which has an almost 100% probability of getting delivered. Routing to the bit bucket is automatically performed by mail-transfer agents, news systems, and the lower layers of the network. 3. The ideal location for all unwanted mail responses: "Flames about this article to the bit bucket." Such a request is guaranteed to overflow one's mailbox with flames. 4. Excuse for all mail that has not been sent. "I mailed you those figures last week; they must have landed in the bit bucket." Compare black hole. This term is used purely in jest. It is based on the fanciful notion that bits are objects that are not destroyed but only misplaced. This appears to have been a mutation of an earlier term "bit box", about which the same legend was current; old-time hackers also report that trainees used to be told that when the CPU stored bits into memory it was actually pulling them "out of the bit box". Another variant of this legend has it that, as a consequence of the "parity preservation law", the number of 1 bits that go to the bit bucket must equal the number of 0 bits. Any imbalance results in bits filling up the bit bucket. A qualified computer technician can empty a full bit bucket as part of scheduled maintenance. In contrast, a "chad box" is a real container used to catch chad. This may be related to the origin of the term "bit bucket" [Comments ?].
  • bivouacked — a military encampment made with tents or improvised shelters, usually without shelter or protection from enemy fire.
  • black duck — a sooty brown, wild duck (Anas rubripes) of E North America
  • black flux — a reducing flux consisting of finely divided carbon and potassium carbonate.
  • black lung — pneumoconiosis of coal miners, caused by coal dust; anthracosis.
  • black ruff — a large, blackish, pelagic fish, Centrolophus niger, of the Atlantic Ocean, chiefly along the coast of Europe.
  • black rust — a stage in any of several diseases of cereals and grasses caused by rust fungi in which black masses of spores appear on the stems or leaves
  • blackguard — an unprincipled contemptible person; scoundrel
  • blacksburg — a town in SW Virginia.
  • blockhouse — (formerly) a wooden fortification with ports or loopholes for defensive fire, observation, etc
  • blue coral — any coral of the genus Heliopora, having brown polyps and a blue skeleton, found in the Indo-Pacific region.
  • blue crane — the great blue heron.
  • blue cross — a nonprofit health insurance organization offering hospitalization and medical benefits to subscribers, esp. to groups of employees and their families
  • blue dicks — a plant, Dichelostemma pulchellum, of the amaryllis family, common on the western coast of the U.S., having headlike clusters of blue flowers.
  • blue racer — a long slender blackish-blue fast-moving colubrid snake, Coluber constrictor flaviventris, of the US
  • blue-black — Something that is blue-black is bluish black in colour.
  • blue-curls — any of a genus (Trichostema) of plants of the mint family, with downy, narrow leaves and blue flowers
  • bluejacket — a sailor in the Navy
  • blues-rock — a blend of rock-'n'-roll and blues.
  • body count — the number of people killed
  • body punch — a blow to the body of an opponent
  • body scrub — a product designed to exfoliate the skin
  • bonus pack — anything sold with a product and marketed as a useful and free extra
  • boucicault — Dion (ˈdaɪɒn), real name Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot. 1822–90, Irish dramatist and actor. His plays include London Assurance (1841), The Octoroon (1859), and The Shaughran (1874)
  • bounceable — to spring back from a surface in a lively manner: The ball bounced off the wall.
  • bounceback — the act or an instance of bouncing back, recovering, or recuperating: Fall sales have experienced a tremendous bounceback.
  • bouncedown — an occasion of restarting play by the umpire bouncing the ball
  • bouncingly — in a bouncing manner
  • box column — a hollow wooden column, as for a porch, usually having a rectangular cross section.
  • box cutter — a knife-like tool with a short retractable blade
  • boy scouts — the worldwide movement founded by Lord Baden-Powell in 1908, now called the Scout Association in the UK and the Boys Scouts of America in the USA, which pursues a programme of activities for boys with the aim of developing character and responsibility
  • brachyuran — any decapod crustacean of the group (formerly suborder) Brachyura, which includes the crabs
  • branch cut — a method for selecting a single-valued function on a subset of the domain of a multiple-valued function of a complex variable.
  • branch out — If a person or an organization branches out, they do something that is different from their normal activities or work.
  • breadcrumb — Breadcrumbs are tiny pieces of dry bread. They are used in cooking.
  • brockhouse — Bertram Neville, 1918–2003, Canadian physicist: Nobel Prize 1994.
  • bruschetta — Bruschetta is a slice of toasted bread which is brushed with olive oil and usually covered with chopped tomatoes.
  • bubble car — (in Britain, formerly) a small car, often having three wheels, with a transparent bubble-shaped top
  • bubonocele — an incomplete hernia in the groin; partial inguinal hernia
  • buccinator — a thin muscle that compresses the cheeks and holds them against the teeth during chewing, etc
  • bucephalus — the favourite horse of Alexander the Great
  • buchenwald — a village in E central Germany, near Weimar; site of a Nazi concentration camp (1937–45)
  • buchmanism — the principles or the international movement of Moral Re-Armament or of the Oxford Group, or belief in or adherence to them.
  • buck fever — nervous excitement felt by inexperienced hunters at the approach of game
  • buck naked — Someone who is buck naked is not wearing any clothes at all.
  • buck teeth — upper front teeth which stick out
  • bucket out — to empty out with or as if with a bucket
  • buckingham — a town in S central England, in Buckinghamshire; university (1975). Pop: 12 512 (2001)
  • buckjumper — an untamed horse
  • buckpasser — a person who avoids responsibility by shifting it to another, especially unjustly or improperly.
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