14-letter words containing d, a, i, b
- be in bad odor — to be in ill repute
- bead lightning — lightning in which the intensity appears to vary along the path and which thus resembles a string of beads.
- beard-stroking — deep thought
- bearded collie — a medium-sized breed of dog having a profuse long straight coat, usually grey or fawn and often with white on the head, legs, and chest, a long tail, and a distinctive beard
- bearded lizard — a large Australian lizard, Amphibolurus barbatus, with an erectile frill around the neck
- bedside manner — A doctor's bedside manner is the way in which they talk to their patients.
- belgian endive — endive (def 2).
- belgian-endive — endive (def 2).
- benzodiazepine — any of a group of chemical compounds that are used as minor tranquillizers, such as diazepam (Valium) and chlordiazepoxide (Librium)
- berberidaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Berberidaceae, a mainly N temperate family of flowering plants (mostly shrubs), including barberry and barrenwort
- berkner island — an island in Antarctica, in the S Weddell Sea, between the Ronne Ice Shelf and the Filchner Ice Shelf.
- 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-endorphin — a potent endorphin released by the anterior pituitary gland in response to pain, trauma, exercise, or other forms of stress.
- beta-oxidation — a process by which fatty acids are degraded, involving oxidation of the beta carbons and removal of successive two-carbon fragments from the fatty acid.
- beveridge plan — the plan for comprehensive social insurance, proposed by Sir William Beveridge in Great Britain in 1941.
- bib and tucker — an outfit of clothes (esp in the phrase best bib and tucker)
- bicuspid valve — mitral valve
- bidding prayer — the formal petitionary prayer, said especially in the Anglican Church immediately before the sermon.
- bidialectalism — the state of being bidialectal
- bildungsromane — a type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist.
- bill of lading — (in foreign trade) a document containing full particulars of goods shipped or for shipment
- billiard table — the rectangular table used for playing billiards
- binding handle — (networking) An identifier representing the connection between a client and server. An association between client/server end-points and protocols.
- binding rafter — a timber for supporting rafters between their extremities, as a purlin.
- binding strake — a very strong, heavy strake of planking, especially one next to a sheer strake.
- biodegradation — to decay and become absorbed by the environment: toys that will biodegrade when they're discarded.
- bioremediation — the use of plants to extract heavy metals from contaminated soils and water
- bird sanctuary — an area of land in which birds are protected and encouraged to breed
- birdcage clock — lantern clock.
- birds and bees — any warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, having a body covered with feathers, forelimbs modified into wings, scaly legs, a beak, and no teeth, and bearing young in a hard-shelled egg.
- birthday party — a party to celebrate someone's birthday
- bitmap display — (hardware) A computer output device where each pixel displayed on the monitor screen corresponds directly to one or more bits in the computer's video memory. Such a display can be updated extremely rapidly since changing a pixel involves only a single processor write to memory compared with a terminal or VDU connected via a serial line where the speed of the serial line limits the speed at which the display can be changed. Most modern personal computers and workstations have bitmap displays, allowing the efficient use of graphical user interfaces, interactive graphics and a choice of on-screen fonts. Some more expensive systems still delegate graphics operations to dedicated hardware such as graphics accelerators. The bitmap display might be traced back to the earliest days of computing when the Manchester University Mark I(?) computer, developed by F.C. Williams and T. Kilburn shortly after the Second World War. This used a storage tube as its working memory. Phosphor dots were used to store single bits of data which could be read by the user and interpreted as binary numbers.
- black bindweed — a twining polygonaceous European plant, Polygonum convolvulus, with heart-shaped leaves and triangular black seed pods
- black blizzard — a dust storm.
- black diamonds — carbonado1 .
- bladder ketmia — plant with pale yellow flowers
- bladder ketmie — flower-of-an-hour
- blade-shearing — the shearing of sheep using hand shears
- bleeding heart — If you describe someone as a bleeding heart, you are criticizing them for being sympathetic towards people who are poor and suffering, without doing anything practical to help.
- blended family — a social unit consisting of two previously married parents and the children of their former marriages
- blind as a bat — having extremely poor eyesight
- blind staggers — the staggers
- blind stamping — an impression on a book cover without using colour or gold leaf
- blister-packed — presented in a blister pack
- blood relation — A blood relation or blood relative is someone who is related to you by birth rather than by marriage.
- blue dandelion — chicory (def 1).
- board chairman — the chairman of the board of a company, etc
- boarding house — A boarding house is a house which people pay to stay in for a short time.
- boarding party — group of officers or sailors who board a ship
- boatswain bird — tropic bird.