0%

21-letter words containing e, o

  • 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.
  • bjornstjerne bjornson — Björnstjerne [byœrn-styer-nuh] /ˈbyœrnˌstyɛr nə/ (Show IPA), 1832–1910, Norwegian poet, novelist, and playwright: Nobel Prize 1903.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • bonnie prince charlie — a member of the royal family that ruled in Scotland from 1371 to 1714 and in England from 1603 to 1714.
  • book of common prayer — the official book of church services of the Church of England, until 1980, when the Alternative Service Book was sanctioned
  • borrowing requirement — the amount that needs to be borrowed to fill a budget deficit
  • bottlebrush moustache — a short, bristly moustache
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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
  • break someone's heart — an act or instance of breaking; disruption or separation of parts; fracture; rupture: There was a break in the window.
  • break the fourth wall — (esp of a character in a television programme, film, or play) to refer to, acknowledge, or address the audience, usually for comedic effect or as an avante-garde technique
  • 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 north america — (formerly) Canada or its constituent regions or provinces that formed part of the British Empire
  • 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.
  • bryan-chamorro treaty — a treaty (1914) between the U.S. and Nicaragua by which the U.S. secured exclusive rights to build a canal across Nicaragua, to connect the Atlantic and Pacific.
  • buffalo carpet beetle — any of several small beetles of the family Dermestidae, the larvae of which are household pests, feeding on rugs and other woolen fabrics, especially Anthrenus scrophulariae (buffalo carpet beetle) and Attagenus piceus (black carpet beetle)
  • 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
  • businessman's holiday — busman's holiday.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • by no manner of means — definitely not
  • byte-code interpreter — (software)   A program that executes a byte code program. An example is the Java Virtual Machine.
  • 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.
  • carlos saavedra lamas — Carlos [kahr-laws] /ˈkɑr lɔs/ (Show IPA), 1878?–1959, Argentine statesman and diplomat: Nobel Peace Prize 1936.
  • caroline of brunswick — 1768–1821, wife of George IV of the United Kingdom: tried for adultery (1820)
  • 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
  • castellon de la plana — a port in E Spain. Pop: 160 714 (2003 est)
  • catch one flat footed — having flatfeet.
  • 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
  • caviar to the general — a thing appealing only to a highly cultivated taste: Hamlet II, ii
  • 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.
  • certificate authority — (cryptography, body)   (CA or "Trusted Third Party") An entity (typically a company) that issues digital certificates to other entities (organisations or individuals) to allow them to prove their identity to others. A Certificate Authority might be an external company such as VeriSign that offers digital certificate services or they might be an internal organisation such as a corporate MIS department. The Certificate Authority's chief function is to verify the identity of entities and issue digital certificates attesting to that identity. The process uses public key cryptography to create a "network of trust". If I want to prove my identity to you, I ask a CA (who you trust to have verified my identity) to encrypt a hash of my signed key with their private key. Then you can use the CA's public key to decrypt the hash and compare it with a hash you calculate yourself. Hashes are used to decrease the amount of data that needs to be transmitted. The hash function must be cryptographically strong, e.g. MD5.
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?