17-letter words containing e, n, t, r, u
- be on the rebound — If you say that someone is on the rebound, you mean that they have just ended a relationship with a girlfriend or boyfriend. This often makes them do things they would not normally do.
- between ourselves — in confidence; as a secret
- 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
- bjarne stroustrup — (person) The father of C++ and author of the C++ bible.
- 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.
- blowout preventer — A blowout preventer is a valve that can be closed when there is uncontrolled flow of fluids.
- blue dot syndrome — (graphics, jargon) The inability to display an image file or text embedded in an image file on your monitor.
- bluegrass country — region in central Ky. where there is much bluegrass
- bow street runner — (in Britain from 1749 to 1829) an officer at Bow Street magistrates' court, London, whose duty was to pursue and arrest criminals
- bowel obstruction — a blockage in the bowel
- bring up the rear — to be at the back in a procession, race, etc
- brokerage account — A brokerage account is an account with a broker where an investor can buy and sell and hold securities.
- budget resolution — a resolution adopted by both houses of the U.S. Congress setting forth, reaffirming, or revising the budget for the U.S. government for a fiscal year.
- budgetary control — a system of managing a business by applying a financial value to each forecast activity. Actual performance is subsequently compared with the estimates
- buncher resonator — See under Klystron.
- bureaucratization — to divide an administrative agency or office into bureaus.
- bursting strength — the capacity of a thing or substance to resist change when under pressure.
- burton-upon-trent — a town in W central England, in E Staffordshire: famous for brewing. Pop: 43 784 (2001)
- butterfly bandage — a butterfly-shaped strip of adhesive medical tape used, when stitches are not required, to keep a deep cut or incision tightly closed while it heals
- butternut pumpkin — a variety of pumpkin, eaten as vegetable
- buyers' inflation — inflation in which rising demand results in a rise in prices.
- by return of post — by the next mail in the opposite direction
- calcium carbonate — a white crystalline salt occurring in limestone, chalk, marble, calcite, coral, and pearl: used in the production of lime and cement. Formula: CaCO3
- california nutmeg — a tall, pungently aromatic California evergreen tree, Torreya californica, of the yew family, having a fissured, gray-brown bark and small, purple-streaked, green fruit.
- campus university — a university in which the buildings, often including shops and cafés, are all on one site
- cape horn current — the part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing E at Cape Horn.
- caribbean current — an ocean current flowing westward through the Caribbean Sea.
- cartesian product — the set of all ordered pairs of members of two given sets. The product A × B is the set of all pairs <a, b> where a is a member of A and b is a member of B
- cast/run your eye — If you cast your eye or run your eye over something, you look at it or read it quickly.
- casting the runes — (jargon) What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program because it never works for anyone else; especially used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does. Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight.
- cellulose nitrate — a compound made by treating cellulose with nitric and sulphuric acids, used in plastics, lacquers, and explosives: a nitrogen-containing ester of cellulose
- centrifugal brake — a safety mechanism on a hoist, crane, etc, that consists of revolving brake shoes that are driven outwards by centrifugal force into contact with a fixed brake drum when the rope drum revolves at excessive speed
- centrifugal force — In physics, centrifugal force is the force that makes objects move outwards when they are spinning around something or travelling in a curve.
- chest measurement — the circumference of the trunk, measured around the middle of the chest
- chicken drumstick — a chicken leg, considered as food
- chiltern hundreds — (in Britain) short for Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds; a nominal office that an MP applies for in order to resign his seat
- chinese turkestan — the E part of the central Asian region of Turkestan: corresponds generally to the present-day Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China
- circular triangle — a triangle in which each side is the arc of a circle
- clairaut equation — a differential equation of the form y = xy prime; + f (y prime;).
- colour separation — the division of a coloured original into cyan, magenta, yellow, and black so that plates may be made for print reproduction. Separation may be achieved by electronic scanning or by photographic techniques using filters to isolate each colour
- colour supplement — A colour supplement is a colour magazine which is one of the sections of a newspaper, especially at weekends.
- colour television — television that broadcasts in real-life colours, as opposed to black and white
- community service — Community service is unpaid work that criminals sometimes do as a punishment instead of being sent to prison.
- commuter airplane — air taxi.
- compound fracture — A compound fracture is a fracture in which the broken bone sticks through the skin.
- compound interest — Compound interest is interest that is calculated both on an original sum of money and on interest which has previously been added to the sum. Compare simple interest.
- compound interval — an interval that is greater than an octave, as a ninth or a thirteenth.
- computer confetti — (jargon) (Or "chad") A common term for punched-card chad, which, however, does not make good confetti, as the pieces are stiff and have sharp corners that could injure the eyes.
- computer language — programming language