21-letter words containing e, i, r
- be in apple-pie order — If a room or a desk is in apple pie order, it is neat and tidy, and everything is where it should be.
- be on the danger list — to be critically ill in hospital
- beat one's brains out — Anatomy, Zoology. the part of the central nervous system enclosed in the cranium of humans and other vertebrates, consisting of a soft, convoluted mass of gray and white matter and serving to control and coordinate the mental and physical actions.
- behavior modification — a technique that seeks to modify animal and human behavior through application of the principles of conditioning, in which rewards and reinforcements, or punishments, are used to establish desired habits, or patterns of behavior
- behavioural contagion — the spread of a particular type of behaviour, such as crying, through a crowd or group of people
- benzalkonium chloride — a white or yellowish-white, water-soluble mixture of ammonium chloride derivatives having the structure C 8 H 10 NRCl, where R is a mixture of radicals ranging from C 8 H 17 – to C 18 H 37 –, that occurs as an amorphous powder or in gelatinous lumps: used chiefly as an antiseptic and a disinfectant.
- benzethonium chloride — a colorless, water-soluble, crystalline solid, ammonium chloride derivative, (C 27 H 42 O 2 N)Cl⋅H 2 O, used chiefly as an antiseptic.
- bernoulli's principle — the principle that in a liquid flowing through a pipe the pressure difference that accelerates the flow when the bore changes is equal to the product of half the density times the change of the square of the speed, provided friction is negligible
- beta-naphthyl radical — Also called alpha-naphthyl group, alpha-naphthyl radical. the univalent group C 1 0 H 7 –, having a replaceable hydrogen atom in the first, or alpha, position; 1-naphthyl group.
- bicameral legislature — two-chamber lawmaking system
- bichloride of mercury — mercuric chloride
- binomial nomenclature — a system for naming plants and animals by means of two Latin names: the first indicating the genus and the second the species to which the organism belongs, as in Panthera leo (the lion)
- biobehavioral science — any of the various branches of the life sciences, as neurobiology, neurochemistry, or neuroendocrinology, that deal with biological aspects of behavior.
- bird-voiced tree frog — a frog, Hyla avivoca, of the southern U.S., having a birdlike, whistling call.
- black-and-tan terrier — Manchester terrier
- black-headed fireworm — the larva of any of several moths, as Rhopobota naevana (black-headed fireworm) which feeds on the leaves of cranberries and causes them to wither.
- blackburn with darwen — a unitary authority in NW England, in Lancashire. Pop: 139 800 (2003 est). Area: 137 sq km (53 sq miles)
- blow one's brains out — to kill oneself by shooting oneself in the head
- bluethroat pikeblenny — See under pikeblenny.
- boiling-water reactor — a nuclear reactor using water as coolant and moderator, steam being produced in the reactor itself: enriched uranium oxide cased in zirconium is the fuel
- bonnie prince charlie — a member of the royal family that ruled in Scotland from 1371 to 1714 and in England from 1603 to 1714.
- borrowing requirement — the amount that needs to be borrowed to fill a budget deficit
- bovine growth hormone — a growth hormone of cattle; esp., this hormone synthesized artificially and administered to beef cattle to increase growth rate and reduce fat and to dairy cows to increase milk production
- box-office attraction — something or something that persuades people to buy tickets for a film or play
- brainstorming session — a meeting held for the purpose of intensive discussion to solve problems or generate ideas
- brazilian firecracker — a tropical American twining plant, Manettia inflata, of the madder family, having opposite, lance-shaped leaves and a red, tubular flower with yellow tips, grown in the southern U.S. as a trellis plant.
- brazilian pepper tree — a small Brazilian evergreen tree or shrub, Schinus terebinthifolius, of the cashew family, having inconspicuous white flowers and bright red fruit: the berries are used for Christmas decorations.
- breaking and entering — (formerly) the gaining of unauthorized access to a building with intent to commit a crime or, having committed the crime, the breaking out of the building
- breakthrough bleeding — bleeding from the uterus that occurs between menstrual periods
- breath-of-life packet — (XEROX PARC) An Ethernet packet that contains bootstrap code, periodically sent out from a working computer to infuse the "breath of life" into any computer on the network that has crashed. Computers depending on such packets have sufficient hardware or firmware code to wait for (or request) such a packet during the reboot process. See also dickless workstation. The notional "kiss-of-death packet", with a function complementary to that of a breath-of-life packet, is recommended for dealing with hosts that consume too many network resources. Though "kiss-of-death packet" is usually used in jest, there is at least one documented instance of an Internet subnet with limited address-table slots in a gateway computer in which such packets were routinely used to compete for slots, rather like Christmas shoppers competing for scarce parking spaces.
- british anti-lewisite — a colorless, oily, viscous liquid, C 3 H 8 OS 2 , originally developed as an antidote to lewisite and now used in treating bismuth, gold, mercury, and arsenic poisoning.
- british north america — (formerly) Canada or its constituent regions or provinces that formed part of the British Empire
- british sign language — the main sign language used by deaf people in the United Kingdom
- british standard time — the standard time used in Britain all the year round from 1968 to 1971, set one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and equalling Central European Time
- broadleaved whitebeam — a whitebeam, Sorbus latifolia, widely found in France and England, also planted as an ornamental
- bromine pentafluoride — a colorless, corrosive liquid, BrF 5 , used as an oxidizer in liquid rocket propellants.
- bulletin board system — (communications, application) (BBS, bboard /bee'bord/, message board, forum; plural: BBSes) A computer and associated software which typically provides an electronic message database where people can log in and leave messages. Messages are typically split into topic groups similar to the newsgroups on Usenet (which is like a distributed BBS). Any user may submit or read any message in these public areas. The term comes from physical pieces of board on which people can pin messages written on paper for general consumption - a "physical bulletin board". Ward Christensen, the programmer and operator of the first BBS (on-line 1978-02-16) called it a CBBS for "computer bulletin board system". Since the rise of the World-Wide Web, the term has become antiquated, though the concept is more popular than ever, with many websites featuring discussion areas where users can post messages for public consumption. Apart from public message areas, some BBSes provided archives of files, personal electronic mail and other services of interest to the system operator (sysop). Thousands of BBSes around the world were run from amateurs' homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line each. Although BBSes were traditionally the domain of hobbyists, many connected directly to the Internet (accessed via telnet), others were operated by government, educational, and research institutions. Fans of Usenet or the big commercial time-sharing bboards such as CompuServe, CIX and GEnie tended to consider local BBSes the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they helped connect hackers and users in the personal-micro and let them exchange code. Use of this term for a Usenet newsgroup generally marks one either as a newbie fresh in from the BBS world or as a real old-timer predating Usenet.
- burn the midnight oil — to work or study late into the night
- bursting at the seams — If a place is very full, you can say that it is bursting at the seams.
- butterfly common lisp — A parallel version of Common LISP for the BBN Butterfly computer.
- by fair means or foul — If someone tries to achieve something by fair means or foul, they use every means possible in order to achieve it, and they do not care if their behaviour is dishonest or unfair.
- byte-code interpreter — (software) A program that executes a byte code program. An example is the Java Virtual Machine.
- cantilever foundation — a building foundation supporting its load partly or wholly upon cantilevers.
- caroline of brunswick — 1768–1821, wife of George IV of the United Kingdom: tried for adultery (1820)
- carrie chapman l catt — Carrie Chapman Lane, 1859–1947, U.S. leader in women's suffrage movements.
- cartesian coordinates — a system of representing points in space in terms of their distance from a given origin measured along a set of mutually perpendicular axes. Written (x,y,z) with reference to three axes
- category merchandiser — A category merchandiser is a person whose job is to maintain stocks, manage displays and promote sales of a certain product category such as footwear.
- catherine of braganza — 1638–1705, wife of Charles II of England, daughter of John IV of Portugal
- cause-effect graphing — (programming) A testing technique that aids in selecting, in a systematic way, a high-yield set of test cases that logically relates causes to effects to produce test cases. It has a beneficial side effect in pointing out incompleteness and ambiguities in specifications.
- caviar to the general — a thing appealing only to a highly cultivated taste: Hamlet II, ii