14-letter words containing d, a
- avoidance play — a play by the declarer designed to prevent a particular opponent from taking the lead.
- award ceremony — ceremony at which an award is presented
- axis of diesel — a name given to a bloc of countries (Russia, Iran, and Venezuela) whose reserves of oil enhance their political importance
- axis-ordinates — y-axis (def 1).
- azidothymidine — an antiretroviral drug used to treat HIV/AIDS
- back and forth — If someone moves back and forth, they repeatedly move in one direction and then in the opposite direction.
- back o' beyond — remote; out-of-the-way; isolated.
- back of beyond — a very remote place
- back-and-forth — backward and forward; side to side; to and fro: a back-and-forth shuttling of buses to the stadium; the back-and-forth movement of a clock's pendulum.
- back-pedalling — a retreat from or a retraction of a previously held view
- backhandedness — The quality of being backhanded; the use of indirect tactics.
- backside cache — (hardware, processor) An implementation of secondary cache memory that allows it to be directly accessed by the CPU. Backside cache is used by Apple Computers, Inc. in their PowerPC G3 processor. Previous PowerPC processors used the system bus to access both secondary cache and main memory. In the PowerPC G3 a dedicated bus handles only CPU/cache transactions. This bus can operate faster than the system bus thus improving the overall performance of the processor. The term apparently derives from the relocation of the secondary cache from the motherboard to the processor card itself, i.e. on the backside of the processor card.
- backside-front — backend-to.
- badger baiting — an illegal sport in which dogs are encouraged to draw a badger out of its burrow and attack it
- balance bridge — a bascule bridge
- balanced valve — a valve designed so that pressure-induced forces from the fluid being controlled oppose one another so that resistance to opening and closing the valve is negligible.
- ball and chain — (formerly) a heavy iron ball attached to a chain and fastened to a prisoner
- ball cartridge — a cartridge containing a primer and a ball and a full charge of powder
- ball indicator — a flight instrument that measures the angle of roll about an aircraft's horizontal axis, thereby indicating whether or not the aircraft is skidding or slipping.
- ball-and-chain — a heavy iron ball fastened by a chain to a prisoner's leg.
- ballistic wind — a single wind vector that would have the same net effect on the trajectory of a projectile as the varying winds encountered in flight.
- ballon d'essai — a project or policy put forward experimentally to gauge reactions to it
- ballroom dance — a social dance, popular since the beginning of the 20th century, in conventional rhythms, such as the foxtrot and the quickstep
- balm of gilead — any of several trees of the burseraceous genus Commiphora, esp C. opobalsamum of Africa and W Asia, that yield a fragrant oily resin
- balm-of-gilead — any of several plants of the genus Commiphora, especially C. opobalsamum and C. meccanensis, which yield a fragrant oleoresin.
- bandar lampung — a port in Indonesia, in S Sumatra on the Sunda Strait; formed by merging the cities of Tanjungkarang and Telukbetung, and sometimes still referred to as Tanjungkarang-Telukbetung. Pop: 742 749 (2000)
- bang's disease — a type of infectious brucellosis affecting cattle, caused by a bacterium (Brucella abortus) and often resulting in abortion
- banker's draft — A banker's draft is the same as a bank draft.
- banker's order — pay order, banker's cheque
- baranof island — an island off SE Alaska, in the western part of the Alexander Archipelago. Area: 4162 sq km (1607 sq miles)
- barbados earth — a diatomaceous marl found in Barbados
- barbados pride — Also called bead tree. a tropical African and Asian tree, Adenanthera pavonina, of the legume family, having feathery foliage and bearing red seeds that are used in beadwork.
- barcode reader — A barcode reader is an electronic scanning machine that reads and sends barcode information.
- barium sulfide — a gray or yellowish-green, water-soluble, poisonous powder, BaS, used chiefly as a depilatory and as an intermediate in the synthesis of pigments, especially lithopone.
- barium-hydrate — Also called calcined baryta, barium oxide, barium monoxide, barium protoxide. a white or yellowish-white poisonous solid, BaO, highly reactive with water: used chiefly as a dehydrating agent and in the manufacture of glass.
- barnard's star — a red dwarf star in the constellation Ophiuchus having the largest proper motion known
- barred warbler — a small passerine songbird, Sylvia nisoria, of the family Muscicapidae
- barrel-chested — A barrel-chested man has a large, rounded chest.
- barrier island — a long island, parallel to the coastline, formed from a ridge of sand (barrier beach) thrown up by the waves, that serves the shore as a protective barrier against tidal waves, storms, etc.
- barrier method — Barrier methods of contraception involve the use of condoms, diaphragms, or other devices that physically prevent the sperm from reaching the egg.
- bartered bride — a comic opera (1866) by Bedřich Smetana.
- bascule bridge — a kind of drawbridge counterweighted so that it can be raised and lowered easily
- bascule-bridge — a device operating like a balance or seesaw, especially an arrangement of a movable bridge (bascule bridge) by which the rising floor or section is counterbalanced by a weight.
- basic industry — an industry which is highly important in a nation's economy
- basidiomycetes — Mycology. any of a group of fungi constituting the phylum Basidiomycota of the kingdom Fungi (or, in older classification schemes, the class Basidiomycetes of the kingdom Plantae), characterized by bearing the spores on a basidium, including the smuts, rust, mushrooms, and puffballs.
- basket-of-gold — a yellow-flowered perennial plant (Alyssum saxatile, now more properly Aurinia saxatilis) of the crucifer family, often used in rock gardens
- basso profundo — (esp in operatic solo singing) a singer with a very deep bass voice
- bastard indigo — a bushy shrub, Amorpha fruticosa, of the legume family, native to North America, having elongated clusters of dull purplish or bluish flowers.
- bastard ridley — ridley (def 1).
- bastard turtle — ridley (def 1).