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16-letter words containing e

  • blow one's cover — to be or serve as a covering for; extend over; rest on the surface of: Snow covered the fields.
  • blow one's lines — (of the wind or air) to be in motion.
  • blow one's stack — to lose one's temper; fly into a rage
  • blow the lid off — a removable or hinged cover for closing the opening, usually at the top, of a pot, jar, trunk, etc.; a movable cover.
  • blow the whistle — to inform (on)
  • blue dawn-flower — a tropical American vine, Ipomoea acuminata, of the morning glory family, having large, funnel-shaped flowers that turn from blue to pink.
  • blue huckleberry — tangleberry.
  • blue in the face — the pure color of a clear sky; the primary color between green and violet in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 450 and 500 nm.
  • blue mockingbird — any of several gray, black, and white songbirds of the genus Mimus, especially M. polyglottos, of the U.S. and Mexico, noted for their ability to mimic the songs of other birds.
  • blue-green algae — any of a division (Cyanophycota) of photosynthetic monerans, microorganisms that contain a blue pigment which obscures the chlorophyll; cyanobacteria
  • blue-ribbon jury — a jury composed of persons having more than ordinary education and presumably exceptional intelligence and perceptiveness, selected by the court on the motion of plaintiff or defendant to try cases of unusual complexity or importance.
  • blue-winged teal — a small North American duck (Anas discors) found on ponds and rivers
  • bluegrass region — a region in central Kentucky, famous for its horse farms and fields of bluegrass.
  • blunt instrument — something such as a hammer, used as a weapon
  • board and batten — a siding consisting of wide boards or of sheets of plywood set vertically with butt joints covered by battens.
  • boarding kennels — a place where dog owners can pay to have their dogs looked after while they are away
  • boarding officer — a coastguard who boards ships suspected of carrying illegal cargoes or posing a security risk
  • boatswain's mate — a job classification in the US navy
  • boatswain's pipe — a whistle used formerly to give orders on board ship
  • bob's your uncle — everything is or will turn out all right
  • boeuf bourgignon — casserole of beef, vegetables, herbs, etc, cooked in red wine
  • bog whortleberry — a plant, Vaccinium uliginosum, of mountain regions, having pink flowers and black fruits
  • bohemian waxwing — any of several songbirds of the family Bombycillidae, having a showy crest and certain feathers tipped with a red, waxy material, as Bombycilla garrulus (Bohemian waxwing) of the Northern Hemisphere.
  • bois de boulogne — a large park in W Paris, formerly a forest: includes the racecourses of Auteuil and Longchamp
  • bois de rose oil — rosewood oil.
  • bomb calorimeter — a device for determining heats of combustion by igniting a sample in a high pressure of oxygen in a sealed vessel and measuring the resulting rise in temperature: used for measuring the calorific value of foods
  • bon gre, mal gre — whether willing or not; willy-nilly.
  • bonded warehouse — a warehouse in which dutiable goods are deposited until duty is paid or the goods are cleared for export
  • bonhomme richard — the flagship of John Paul Jones.
  • bonneville flats — an area of salt flats in the W part of Great Salt Lake Desert, in NW Utah: site of automobile speed tests.
  • book of business — A company's or agent's book of business is the total of all insurance accounts written by them.
  • book of the dead — in ancient Egypt, a book of prayers and charms meant to help the soul in the afterworld
  • boolean-operator — any operation in which each of the operands and the result take one of two values.
  • bootstrap loader — (operating system)   A short program loaded from non-volatile storage and used to bootstrap a computer. On early computers great efforts were expended on making the bootstrap loader short, in order to make it easy to toggle in via the front panel switches. It was just clever enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from punched cards or paper tape), to which it handed control. This program in turn read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer "pulled itself up by its bootstraps" to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap loader is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the "boot block". When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it. A diskless workstation can use bootp to load its OS from the network.
  • bootstrap memory — memory that allows new programs to be entered because some simple preliminary instructions or information are already built in.
  • bordeaux mixture — a fungicide consisting of a solution of equal quantities of copper sulphate and quicklime
  • bordelaise sauce — a dark sauce made from meat stock, flour, wine, onions, seasonings, etc., served over broiled meat
  • border leicester — a breed of sheep originally developed in the border country between Scotland and England by crossing English Leicesters with Cheviots: large numbers in Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand. It has a long white fleece with no wool on the head
  • boreal chickadee — a brown-capped, black-throated chickadee (Parus hudsonicus) found near the Atlantic coast from Labrador to N New York
  • bornholm disease — an epidemic virus infection characterized by pain round the base of the chest
  • boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
  • boston tea party — a raid in 1773 made by citizens of Boston (disguised as Indians) on three British ships in the harbour as a protest against taxes on tea and the monopoly given to the East India Company. The contents of several hundred chests of tea were dumped into the harbour
  • botanical garden — a place where collections of plants and trees are kept for scientific study and exhibition
  • bother/bother it — Some people say 'bother' or 'bother it' when they are annoyed about something.
  • bouches-du-rhone — a department of S central France, in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Capital: Marseille. Pop: 1 883 645 (2003 est). Area: 5284 sq km (2047 sq miles)
  • bouillotte table — a small round table of the 18th century, having around its top a gallery within which a bouchon could be set for the playing of card games.
  • boulogne-sur-mer — a port in N France, on the English Channel. Pop: 44 859 (1999)
  • boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
  • bouquet larkspur — a plant, Delphinium grandiflorum, of eastern Asia, having blue or whitish flowers and hairy fruit.
  • boutique brewery — microbrewery.
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