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17-letter words containing e, n, t, r, a

  • bachelor's-button — any of various plants with round flower heads, especially the cornflower.
  • back on the rails — If something is back on the rails, it is beginning to be successful again after a period when it almost failed.
  • background report — a report on someone or something that sheds light on their background, esp a report on the background of a person convicted of a crime before they are sentenced by a judge
  • bacteriorhodopsin — a purple protein containing retinal and found in the plasma membrane of certain bacteria (genus Halobacterium): it directly supplies electrochemical energy from sunlight
  • baden-wurttemberg — a state of SW Germany. Capital: Stuttgart. Pop: 53 938 (2003 est). Area: 35 742 sq km (13 800 sq miles)
  • balance of nature — the stable state in which natural communities of animals and plants exist, maintained by adaptation, competition, and other interactions between members of the communit ies and their nonliving environment
  • balance of terror — military deterrence based on the possession of weapons of mass destruction by opponents in a conflict
  • balanced literacy — a method of teaching reading in which phonics and whole language approaches are both used to maximize student learning.
  • bald-faced hornet — any large, stinging paper wasp of the family Vespidae, as Vespa crabro (giant hornet) introduced into the U.S. from Europe, or Vespula maculata (bald-faced hornet or white-faced hornet) of North America.
  • bangalore torpedo — an explosive device in a long metal tube, used to blow gaps in barbed-wire barriers
  • bankruptcy estate — all of the interests that a debtor has at the start of a bankruptcy case
  • barkhausen effect — the phenomenon of short, sudden changes in the magnetism of a ferromagnetic substance occurring when the intensity of the magnetizing field is continuously altered.
  • barrel distortion — distortion of an image produced by an optical system that causes straight lines at image margins to bulge outwards
  • barren strawberry — a Eurasian plant, Potentilla sterilis, related to the strawberry that does not produce edible fruit
  • base lending rate — a minimum interest rate on which financial institutions base the rates they use for lending
  • baseboard heating — a heating system by pipes, through which steam or hot water circulates, near the base of the walls of rooms
  • basement membrane — a thin, extracellular membrane underlying epithelial tissue.
  • battle of britain — (in World War II) the series of aerial combats that took place between British and German aircraft during the autumn of 1940 and that included the severe bombardment of British cities.
  • beat one's brains — to try hard to remember, understand, or solve something
  • beat one's breast — to display guilt and remorse publicly or ostentatiously
  • bed and breakfast — Bed and breakfast is a system of accommodation in a hotel or guest house, in which you pay for a room for the night and for breakfast the following morning. The abbreviation B&B is also used.
  • bed-and-breakfast — an accommodation offered by an inn, hotel, or especially a private home, consisting of a room for the night and breakfast the next morning for one inclusive price.
  • beer and skittles — enjoyment or pleasure
  • bell-hanger's bit — a bit for drilling small holes through studs or the like.
  • benoit mandelbrot — (person)   /ben'wa man'dl-bro/ Benoit B. Mandelbrot. The IBM scientist who wrote several original books on fractals and gave his name to the set he was discovered, the Mandelbrot set and coined the term "fractal" in 1975 from the Latin fractus or "to break".
  • bill of adventure — a certificate made out by a merchant to show that goods handled by him and his agents are the property of another party at whose risk the dealing is done
  • bill of attainder — (formerly) a legislative act finding a person guilty without trial of treason or felony and declaring him attainted
  • biological parent — a parent who has conceived (biological mother) or sired (biological father) rather than adopted a child and whose genes are therefore transmitted to the child.
  • bitter almond oil — almond oil (def 2).
  • bitter-almond-oil — Also called sweet almond oil, expressed almond oil. a colorless to pale yellow fatty oil expressed from the seeds of the sweet almond, used in preparing perfumes and confections.
  • bjarne stroustrup — (person)   The father of C++ and author of the C++ bible.
  • blank endorsement — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
  • blessed sacrament — the consecrated elements of the Eucharist
  • blood and thunder — A blood and thunder performer or performance is very loud and emotional.
  • blood-and-thunder — sensationalism, violence, or exaggerated melodrama: a movie full of blood and thunder.
  • bluegrass country — region in central Ky. where there is much bluegrass
  • boat-billed heron — a nocturnal, tropical American wading bird (Cochlearius cochlearius) with a large, broad bill: it is the only member of a family (Cochleariidae) of wading birds
  • body center plate — one of a pair of plates that fit together and support the body of a car on a truck, while allowing the truck to rotate with respect to the body. One plate (body center plate) is attached to the underside of the car body and the other (truck center plate) is part of the car truck.
  • bohemian brethren — a Protestant Christian sect formed in the 15th century from various Hussite groups, which rejected oaths and military service and advocated a pure and disciplined spiritual life. It was reorganized in 1722 as the Moravian Church
  • book depreciation — Book depreciation is depreciation in a company's internal financial records that is different from the amount that is used for taxes.
  • boolean operation — any operation in which each of the operands and the result take one of two values.
  • branch delay slot — delayed control-transfer
  • branch prediction — (processor, algorithm)   A technique used in some processors with instruction prefetch to guess whether a conditional branch will be taken or not and prefetch code from the appropriate location. When a branch instruction is executed, its address and that of the next instruction executed (the chosen destination of the branch) are stored in the Branch Target Buffer. This information is used to predict which way the instruction will branch the next time it is executed so that instruction prefetch can continue. When the prediction is correct (and it is over 90% of the time), executing a branch does not cause a pipeline break. Some later CPUs simply prefetch both paths instead of trying to predict which way the branch will go. An extension of the idea of branch prediction is speculative execution.
  • brazilian peridot — a light yellowish-green tourmaline used as a gem: not a true peridot.
  • break one's heart — to grieve or cause to grieve very deeply, esp through love
  • breakdown voltage — the minimum applied voltage that would cause a given insulator or electrode to break down.
  • breathe life into — revive, rejuvenate
  • brightening agent — a compound applied to a textile to increase its brightness by the conversion of ultraviolet radiation to visible (blue) light, used in detergents
  • brighton and hove — a city and unitary authority in S England, in East Sussex. Pop: 251 500 (2003 est). Area: 72 sq km (28 sq miles)
  • bring up the rear — to be at the back in a procession, race, etc
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