21-letter words containing e, n, t, l
- augustin jean fresnel — Augustin Jean, 1788–1827, French physicist.
- australian cattle dog — a compact strongly-built dog of a breed with pricked ears and a smooth bluish-grey coat, often used for controlling and moving cattle
- averaging light meter — an exposure meter that evaluates light measured from all parts of the picture area to generate an average reading.
- baja california norte — a state of NW Mexico, in the N part of the Lower California peninsula. Capital: Mexicali. Pop: 2 487 700 (2000). Area: about 71 500 sq km (27 600 sq miles)
- balance sheet account — A balance sheet account is an account in the chart of accounts that is reported on the balance sheet.
- ball-and-socket joint — a coupling between two rods, tubes, etc, that consists of a spherical part fitting into a spherical socket, allowing free movement within a specific conical volume
- be flat on one's back — the rear part of the human body, extending from the neck to the lower end of the spine.
- be in black and white — You say that something is in black and white when it has been written or printed, and not just said.
- be in the melting pot — If something is in the melting pot, you do not know what is going to happen to it.
- be on the danger list — to be critically ill in hospital
- behavioural contagion — the spread of a particular type of behaviour, such as crying, through a crowd or group of people
- behind the eight ball — in a difficult situation; snookered
- bentley systems, inc. — (company) The company that sells MicroStation. Address: Exton, PA, USA.
- 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.
- bernadette of lourdes — Saint. original name Marie Bernarde Soubirous. 1844–79, French peasant girl born in Lourdes, whose visions of the Virgin Mary led to the establishment of Lourdes as a centre of pilgrimage, esp for the sick or crippled. Feast day: Feb 18
- 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.
- beyond (all) question — beyond (any) dispute or doubt
- binding-time analysis — (compiler) An analysis to identify sub-expressions which can be evaluated at compile-time or where versions of a function can be generated and called which are specialised to certain values of one or more arguments. See partial evaluation.
- 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)
- black-and-tan terrier — Manchester terrier
- blackburn with darwen — a unitary authority in NW England, in Lancashire. Pop: 139 800 (2003 est). Area: 137 sq km (53 sq miles)
- blot on the landscape — If you describe something such as a building as a blot on the landscape, you mean that you think it is very ugly and spoils an otherwise attractive place.
- blow one's brains out — to kill oneself by shooting oneself in the head
- blow the whistle (on) — to report or inform (on)
- blow your own trumpet — If you blow your own trumpet or blow your own horn, you tell people that you are very clever or successful.
- 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
- bow to the inevitable — If someone bows to the inevitable and does something that they do not want to do, they do it, because circumstances force them to do it.
- 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.
- breakthrough bleeding — bleeding from the uterus that occurs between menstrual periods
- 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 sign language — the main sign language used by deaf people in the United Kingdom
- bromine pentafluoride — a colorless, corrosive liquid, BrF 5 , used as an oxidizer in liquid rocket propellants.
- built-in obsolescence — a method of stimulating consumer demand by designing products that wear out or become outmoded after limited use.
- 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
- business intelligence — the methods and technologies that gather, store, report, and analyze business data to help people make business decisions: business intelligence software; business intelligence tools.
- butterfly common lisp — A parallel version of Common LISP for the BBN Butterfly computer.
- button up (one's lip) — to refrain from talking; esp., to keep a secret
- cancellation deadline — A cancellation deadline is a date before which you must cancel a hotel reservation without paying any money.
- canticle of canticles — another name for the Song of Solomon, used in the Douay Bible
- cantilever foundation — a building foundation supporting its load partly or wholly upon cantilevers.
- carrie chapman l catt — Carrie Chapman Lane, 1859–1947, U.S. leader in women's suffrage movements.
- cascading style sheet — a file recording style details, such as fonts, colours, etc, that is read by browsers so that style is consistent over multiple web pages
- castellon de la plana — a port in E Spain. Pop: 160 714 (2003 est)
- catch one flat footed — having flatfeet.
- caviar to the general — a thing appealing only to a highly cultivated taste: Hamlet II, ii
- central daylight time — the time observed in the Central Time Zone of the United states when Daylight Savings Time is in effect; GMT -5
- central european time — the standard time adopted by Western European countries one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, corresponding to British Summer Time
- central limit theorem — any of several theorems stating that the sum of a number of random variables obeying certain conditions will assume a normal distribution as the number of variables becomes large.