16-letter words containing g, b, m
- el camino bignum — (humour) /el' k*-mee'noh big'nuhm/ The road mundanely called El Camino Real, a road through the San Francisco peninsula that originally extended all the way down to Mexico City and many portions of which are still intact. Navigation on the San Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real, which defines logical north and south even though it isn't really north-south many places. El Camino Real runs right past Stanford University. The Spanish word "real" (which has two syllables: /ray-al'/) means "royal"; El Camino Real is "the royal road". In the Fortran language, a "real" quantity is a number typically precise to seven significant digits, and a "double precision" quantity is a larger floating-point number, precise to perhaps fourteen significant digits (other languages have similar "real" types). When a hacker from MIT visited Stanford in 1976, he remarked what a long road El Camino Real was. Making a pun on "real", he started calling it "El Camino Double Precision" - but when the hacker was told that the road was hundreds of miles long, he renamed it "El Camino Bignum", and that name has stuck. (See bignum).
- embourgeoisement — (chiefly UK) The taking-up of middle-class attitudes or values; bourgeoisification; the process of becoming affluent.
- family balancing — the choosing of the sex of a future child on the basis of how many children of each sex a family already has
- flamborough head — a chalk promontory in NE England, on the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire
- flying ambulance — an aircraft used to take sick or injured people to hospital
- four-masted brig — jackass bark (def 2).
- general assembly — the legislature in some states of the U.S.
- gentlemen's club — a private social club whose members were traditionally aristocratic males
- gingerbread palm — doom palm.
- gingerbread plum — a tree, Neocarya macrophylla, of western Africa, bearing a large, edible, starchy fruit.
- global community — the people or nations of the world, considered as being closely connected by modern telecommunications and as being economically, socially, and politically interdependent
- go out on a limb — say sth daring
- goldsmith beetle — a brilliant golden scarabaeid beetle, Cetonia aurata, of Europe.
- gulf of martaban — an inlet of the Bay of Bengal in Myanmar
- have a big mouth — to speak indiscreetly, loudly, or excessively
- hemangioblastoma — (medicine) Any of several benign neoplasm tumours of the brain.
- honeymoon bridge — any of several varieties of bridge for two players.
- hummingbird moth — hawk moth.
- hydrogen bromide — a colorless gas, HBr, having a pungent odor: the anhydride of hydrobromic acid.
- imaginary number — Also called imaginary, pure imaginary number. a complex number having its real part equal to zero.
- king james bible — Authorized Version.
- kingdom-of-nubia — a region in S Egypt and the Sudan, N of Khartoum, extending from the Nile to the Red Sea.
- labour agreement — a contract between workers and managers setting out working conditions, wages, etc
- latent ambiguity — uncertainty that arises when a seemingly clear written instrument is matched against an extrinsic fact, as when a description of something being sold fits two different items.
- lightbulb moment — a moment of sudden inspiration, revelation, or recognition
- magnetic bearing — the bearing of a point relative to that of the nearest magnetic pole.
- magnolia warbler — a black and yellow wood warbler, Dendroica magnolia, of North America.
- manganese bronze — an alloy that is about 55 percent copper, 40 percent zinc, and up to 3.5 percent manganese.
- margaret drabble — Margaret, born 1939, English novelist.
- marine biologist — scientist who studies sea life
- megakaryoblastic — (cytology) Of or pertaining to a megakaryoblast.
- mobility housing — houses designed or adapted for people who have difficulty in walking but are not necessarily chairbound
- molybdate orange — a pigment consisting of a solid solution of sulfate, molybdate, and chromate compounds of lead.
- mönchen-gladbach — city in WC Germany, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia: pop. 266,000
- montagu's blenny — a small blenny, Coryphoblennius galerita, found among rocks in shallow water
- munchen-gladbach — former name of Mönchengladbach.
- number crunching — a person or thing that performs a great many numerical calculations, as a financial analyst, statistician, computer, or computer program.
- number-crunching — a person or thing that performs a great many numerical calculations, as a financial analyst, statistician, computer, or computer program.
- of human bondage — a novel (1915) by W. Somerset Maugham.
- patent ambiguity — uncertainty of meaning created by the obscure or ambiguous language appearing on the face of a written instrument.
- photograph album — bound book for photos
- pietermaritzburg — a province in the E part of the Republic of South Africa. 35,284 sq. mi. (91,886 sq. km). Capital: Pietermaritzburg.
- pinpoint bombing — precision bombing.
- rag-and-bone man — a peddler who buys and sells used clothes, rags, etc.; junkman.
- rough and tumble — characterized by violent, random, disorderly action and struggles: a rough-and-tumble fight; He led an adventuresome, rough-and-tumble life.
- rough-and-tumble — characterized by violent, random, disorderly action and struggles: a rough-and-tumble fight; He led an adventuresome, rough-and-tumble life.
- schaumburg-lippe — a former state in NW Germany.
- simon boccanegra — an opera (1857) by Giuseppe Verdi.
- smooth breathing — a symbol (') used in the writing of Greek to indicate that the initial vowel over which it is placed is unaspirated.
- steamboat gothic — a florid architectural style suggesting the gingerbread-decorated construction of river boats of the Victorian period.