15-letter words containing e, d, i, r
- bevelled mirror — a mirror with a bevelled edge
- bidirectionally — in a bidirectional manner
- big muddy river — a river in SW Illinois, flowing SW into the Mississippi. About 120 miles (195 km) long.
- big sandy creek — a river in central Colorado, flowing NE and SE to the Arkansas River near Lamar: site of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre. 200 miles (322 km) long.
- bilateral trade — a system of trading between two countries in which each country attempts to balance its trade with that of the other
- biodestructible — biodegradable
- birch partridge — ruffed grouse
- bird of passage — If you refer to someone as a bird of passage, you mean that they are staying in a place for a short time before going to another place.
- bird's eye view — You say that you have a bird's eye view of a place when you are looking down at it from a great height, so that you can see a long way but everything looks very small.
- bits per second — (communications, unit) (bps, b/s) The unit in which data rate is measured. For example, a modem's data rate is usually measured in kilobits per second. In 1996, the maximum modem speed for use on the PSTN was 33.6 kbps, rising to 56 kbps in 1997. Note that kilo- (k), mega- (M), etc. in data rates denote powers of 1000, not 1024.
- bladder campion — a European caryophyllaceous plant, Silene vulgaris, having white flowers with an inflated calyx
- blank cartridge — a cartridge containing powder but no bullet: used in battle practice or as a signal
- blasting powder — a form of gunpowder made with sodium nitrate instead of saltpeter, used chiefly for blasting rock, ore, etc.
- blending center — A blending center is a place for mixing fluids, gases, and powders.
- blessed trinity — Trinity (def 1).
- board-certified — A doctor who is board-certified has passed tests and meets the standards of a board of specialists in their area of medicine.
- boiled dressing — a cooked salad dressing thickened with egg yolks and often containing mustard.
- border incident — an incident, usually fighting, on a border between countries
- borderline case — a person or thing that is not clearly classifiable as something
- boustrophedonic — of or relating to lines written in opposite directions
- braille display — (hardware) (Or "refreshable braille display", "refreshable display") An electromechanical device that renders braille with tiny, independently controlled pins used to represent the state of dots in braille cells. Each pin, in its "on" state, raises above the top of its hole in the screen; in its "off" state, it drops below the top of its hole. Older systems used tiny solenoids to control the state of the pins; modern systems are piezoelectric. Typical dimensions of a braille display are 1 line of 40 cells, each cell of two-by-eight dots.
- brand extension — the practice of using a well-known brand name to promote new products or services in unrelated fields
- break-in period — a period during which certain restrictions or moderation in operating should be followed, as the avoidance of high speed, rapid acceleration, or severe braking for a new automobile.
- breech delivery — birth of a baby with the feet or buttocks appearing first
- breeding ground — If you refer to a situation or place as a breeding ground for something bad such as crime, you mean that this thing can easily develop in that situation or place.
- breeding season — the time of year during which animals breed
- bridge of sighs — a covered 16th-century bridge in Venice, between the Doges' Palace and the prisons, through which prisoners were formerly led to trial or execution
- bridge-building — efforts to establish communications and friendly contacts between people in order to make them friends or allies
- brights-disease — a disease characterized by albuminuria and heightened blood pressure.
- brill's disease — a form of epidemic typhus fever in which the disease recurs years after the original infection
- bring to a head — to bring or be brought to a crisis
- broken pediment — a pediment, as over a doorway or window, having its raking cornice interrupted at the crown or apex.
- bronze diabetes — hemochromatosis.
- bronzing powder — the powder used in bronzing, consisting of alloys of bronze or brass
- brooklyn bridge — a suspension bridge over the East River, in New York City, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn: built 1867–84. 5989 feet (1825 meters) long.
- brownfield site — a disused site envisaged for redevelopment
- brush discharge — a slightly luminous electrical discharge between points of high charge density when the charge density is insufficient to cause a spark or around sharp points on a highly charged conductor because of ionization of air molecules in their vicinity
- buffalo soldier — (formerly, especially among American Indians) a black soldier.
- building permit — a permit for construction work
- building trades — the trades and professions concerned with the creation and finishing of buildings, such as carpenters, plasterers, masons, electricians, etc.
- building worker — a labourer, bricklayer, etc who works in the construction industry
- buried treasure — A surprising piece of code found in some program. While usually not wrong, it tends to vary from crufty to bletcherous, and has lain undiscovered only because it was functionally correct, however horrible it is. Used sarcastically, because what is found is anything *but* treasure. Buried treasure almost always needs to be dug up and removed. "I just found that the scheduler sorts its queue using bubble sort! Buried treasure!"
- butter-fingered — a person who frequently drops things; clumsy person.
- cadmean victory — a victory won with great losses to the victors
- calcined baryta — baryta (def 1).
- calcined-baryta — 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.
- calcium carbide — a grey salt of calcium used in the production of acetylene (by its reaction with water) and calcium cyanamide. Formula: CaC2
- calculated risk — a chance of failure, the probability of which is estimated before some action is undertaken.
- calendarization — the process of calendarizing
- calf diphtheria — a disease of the throat in young calves caused by Fusobacterium necrophorum, resulting in breathing difficulty and a painful cough