18-letter words containing e, i, d, r
- apartment building — An apartment building or apartment house is a tall building which contains different apartments on different floors.
- aphrodite of melos — a Greek statue of Venus in marble, c200 b.c., found in 1820 on Melos and now in the Louvre, Paris.
- apparent magnitude — magnitude (sense 3)
- armed intervention — an official response to a situation which involves the armed forces
- arsenic trisulfide — a yellow or red crystalline substance, As 2 S 3 , occurring in nature as the mineral orpiment, and used as a pigment (king's yellow) and in pyrotechnics.
- as near as damn it — as near as possible; very near
- asciibetical order — (jargon, programming) /as'kee-be'-t*-kl or'dr/ Used to indicate that data is sorted in ASCII collated order rather than alphabetical order. The main difference is that, in ASCII, all the upper case letters come before any of the lower case letters so, e.g., "Z" comes before "a".
- associate director — a person who is joined with one or more other directors in an enterprise, business, etc, having equal or nearly equal status
- asymptotic freedom — a property of the force between quarks, according to quantum chromodynamics, such that they behave almost like free particles when they are close together within a hadron.
- at/from a distance — If you are at a distance from something, or if you see it or remember it from a distance, you are a long way away from it in space or time.
- atmospheric window — wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be transmitted through the earth's atmosphere. Atmospheric windows occur in the visible, infrared, and radio regions of the spectrum
- attendance figures — the number of people present at events such as football matches or concerts
- attendance officer — someone whose job is to keep records of students' attendance at school and to encourage students to attend
- audio conferencing — the practice of conducting meetings by the use of audio telecommunications
- auditory phonetics — the branch of phonetics concerned with the perception of speech sounds by humans
- augmented interval — an interval that is a half step greater than the corresponding major or perfect interval
- australian doubles — an unusual formation in doubles in which the server's partner is positioned on the same side of the court as the server.
- authorized capital — the total amount of value of the shares that a company is allowed to distribute
- authorized version — the revised English translation of the Bible published in England in 1611 with the authorization of King James I
- avoirdupois weight — a British and American system of weights based on a pound of 16 ounces
- background reading — reading of related works in order to get contextual information on a topic that you are intending to study or write about
- bedlington terrier — a lithe, graceful breed of terrier having a long tapering head with no stop and a thick fleecy coat
- berwick-upon-tweed — a town in N England, in N Northumberland at the mouth of the Tweed: much involved in border disputes between England and Scotland between the 12th and 16th centuries; neutral territory 1551–1885. Pop: 12 870 (2001)
- biodiversification — the process by which the diversity of plants or animals develops or is increased within a particular region or group of organisms.
- bird's-foot violet — a North American violet (Viola pedata) having divided leaves and large blue or purple flowers
- bird's-nest fungus — any fungus of the family Nidulariaceae, having a nestlike spore-producing body containing egglike spore-filled structures
- bird's-nest orchid — a brown parasitic Eurasian orchid, Neottia nidus-avis, whose thick fleshy roots resemble a bird's nest and contain a fungus on which the orchid feeds
- birds of a feather — If you refer to two people as birds of a feather, you mean that they have the same interests or are very similar.
- bloodbrain barrier — a layer of tightly packed cells that make up the walls of brain capillaries and prevent substances in the blood from diffusing freely into the brain: passage across the cell membranes is determined by solubility in the lipid bilayer or recognition by a transport molecule.
- board of directors — A company's board of directors is the group of people elected by its shareholders to manage the company.
- board of education — a group or agency with responsibility for education
- board of elections — a bipartisan board appointed usually by local authorities and charged with control of elections and voting procedure.
- board of examiners — a group of people who officially administer examinations
- brazilian rosewood — a Brazilian tree, Dalbergia nigra, of the legume family.
- bread and circuses — something offered as a means of distracting attention from a problem or grievance
- brewer's blackbird — a blackbird, Euphagus cyanocephalus, of the U.S., the male of which has greenish-black plumage with a purplish-black head.
- bring-and-buy sale — A bring-and-buy sale is an informal sale to raise money for a charity or other organization. People who come to the sale bring things to be sold and buy things that other people have brought.
- briquet's syndrome — somatization disorder.
- broadcasting house — any of a number of buildings in the UK from which the BBC broadcasts or has broadcast
- building materials — materials such as bricks, cement, timber, etc
- burn one's bridges — If you burn your bridges, you do something which forces you to continue with a particular course of action, and makes it impossible for you to return to an earlier situation or relationship.
- butler's sideboard — a sideboard, often with a fall front, having on its top a china cabinet with glazed doors.
- byte-code compiler — (programming, tool) A compiler which outputs a program in some kind of byte-code. Compare: byte-code interpreter.
- cape breton island — an island off SE Canada, in NE Nova Scotia, separated from the mainland by the Strait of Canso: its easternmost point is Cape Breton. Pop: 132 298 (2006). Area: 10 280 sq km (3970 sq miles)
- carbonic anhydrase — an enzyme in blood cells that catalyses the decomposition of carbonic acid into carbon dioxide and water, facilitating the transport of carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs
- carbonic-anhydride — carbon dioxide.
- carcinoid syndrome — the systemic effects, including flushing, palpitations, diarrhea, and cramps, resulting from increased blood levels of serotonin secreted by a carcinoid.
- carolina chickadee — a chickadee, Parus carolinensis, of the southeastern U.S., resembling but smaller than the black-capped chickadee.
- cationic detergent — a type of detergent in which the active part of the molecule is a positive ion (cation). Cationic detergents are usually quaternary ammonium salts and often also have bactericidal properties
- ceiling decoration — a plaster moulding for the centre of a ceiling; other decoration, such as coving