14-letter words containing d, e, c, r
- articled clerk — a trainee solicitor bound by a written contract
- artificialized — Simple past tense and past participle of artificialize.
- atacama desert — a desert region along the W coast of South America, mainly in N Chile: a major source of nitrates. Area: about 80 000 sq km (31 000 sq miles)
- atomic-powered — powered by atomic energy
- auction bridge — a variety of bridge, now generally superseded by contract bridge, in which all the tricks made score towards the game
- audience share — the percentage of households with television sets in use or tuned to a particular station during a specific period of time.
- autodestructed — Simple past tense and past participle of autodestruct.
- award ceremony — ceremony at which an award is presented
- backside-front — backend-to.
- balance bridge — a bascule bridge
- ball cartridge — a cartridge containing a primer and a ball and a full charge of powder
- ballroom dance — a social dance, popular since the beginning of the 20th century, in conventional rhythms, such as the foxtrot and the quickstep
- barcode reader — A barcode reader is an electronic scanning machine that reads and sends barcode information.
- barrel-chested — A barrel-chested man has a large, rounded chest.
- 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.
- battle-scarred — adversely affected from the experience of battle, or some other traumatic experience
- be cursed with — to be afflicted with; suffer from
- beach wormwood — a composite plant, Artemisia stellerana, having yellow flowers and deeply lobed leaves covered with dense white fuzz.
- 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
- benday process — a process for adding tone or shading, as in reproducing drawings, by the overlay on the plate of patterns, as of dots
- 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.
- beyond compare — If you describe something as beyond compare, you mean that it is extremely good or extremely great.
- bib and tucker — an outfit of clothes (esp in the phrase best bib and tucker)
- big red switch — (jargon) (BRS) IBM jargon for the power switch on a computer, especially the "Emergency Pull" switch on an IBM mainframe or the power switch on an IBM PC where it really is large and red. "This [email protected]%$% bitty box is hung again; time to hit the Big Red Switch." It is alleged that the emergency pull switch on an IBM 360/91 actually fired a non-conducting bolt into the main power feed; the BRSes on more recent mainframes physically drop a block into place so that they can't be pushed back in. People get fired for pulling them, especially inappropriately (see also molly-guard). Compare power cycle, three-finger salute, 120 reset; see also scram switch.
- birdcage clock — lantern clock.
- black redstart — a small, Passerine bird, Phoenicurus ochruros, found in Central and S Europe
- bladder cancer — any cancer of the bladder
- blister-packed — presented in a blister pack
- block calendar — a calendar in the form of a block of sheets each printed with the date of one day
- bodice-ripping — A bodice-ripping film or novel is one which is set in the past and which includes a lot of sex scenes. You use this word especially if you do not think it is very good and is just intended to entertain people.
- body corporate — a group of persons incorporated to carry out a specific enterprise
- bomber command — a former unit of the Royal Air Force dedicated to tactical and strategic bombing, esp during WWII
- botanic garden — a place in which plants are grown, studied, and exhibited
- boulder canyon — a canyon of the Colorado River between Arizona and Nevada, above Boulder Dam.
- boundary fence — a fence between properties
- bow and scrape — to behave in an excessively deferential or obsequious way
- bradford score — a measure of the amount of time during which an employee is absent from work, based on assigning a number of points according to the frequency and length of absences
- bradley effect — the distortion of opinion polls caused by the reluctance of respondents to admit to a preference that is regarded as socially unacceptable
- branched chain — an open chain of atoms with one or more side chains attached to it
- bread poultice — a poultice made from breadcrumbs
- breech-loading — (of a firearm) loaded at the breech
- breeding stock — animals specifically kept to breed from
- 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
- brushed cotton — cotton fabric that is brushed to remove excess lint and fibres to leave a soft, smooth finish
- bucket brigade — a line of persons passing buckets of water along in trying to put out a fire