18-letter words containing g, e, r, o
- blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
- board of governors — a group of people who oversee the running of a school
- borosilicate glass — any of a range of heat- and chemical-resistant glasses, such as Pyrex, prepared by fusing together boron(III) oxide, silicon dioxide, and, usually, a metal oxide
- bosnia-herzegovina — a country in SE Europe; a constituent republic of Yugoslavia until 1991; in a state of civil war (1992–95); Serbian and Croatian forces were also involved: mostly barren and mountainous, with forests in the east. Languages: Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian (formerly all regarded together as Serbo-Croat). Religion: Muslim, Serbian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic. Currency: marka (pegged to the euro). Capital: Sarajevo. Pop: 3 875 723 (2013 est). Area: 51 129 sq km (19 737 sq miles)
- boulogne-sur-seine — an industrial suburb of SW Paris. Pop: 106 367 (1999)
- bourdon-tube gauge — an instrument for measuring the pressure of gases or liquids, consisting of a semicircular or coiled, flexible metal tube attached to a gauge that records the degree to which the tube is straightened by the pressure of the gas or liquid inside.
- brightness control — a control that enables the brightness of the image on a television screen, computer monitor, etc to be adjusted
- bring someone luck — If you say that something brings bad luck or brings someone good luck, you believe that it has an influence on whether good or bad things happen to them.
- bring to its knees — If a country or organization is brought to its knees, it is almost completely destroyed by someone or something.
- broadcasting house — any of a number of buildings in the UK from which the BBC broadcasts or has broadcast
- burn one's bridges — If you burn your bridges, you do something which forces you to continue with a particular course of action, and makes it impossible for you to return to an earlier situation or relationship.
- burn one's fingers — to suffer from having meddled or been rash
- cabernet sauvignon — a black grape originally grown in the Bordeaux area of France, and now throughout the wine-producing world
- cabinet government — parliamentary government.
- carboxyhaemoglobin — haemoglobin coordinated with carbon monoxide, formed as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. As carbon monoxide is bound in preference to oxygen, tissues are deprived of oxygen
- catalogue raisonne — a descriptive catalogue, esp one covering works of art in an exhibition or collection
- categorial grammar — a theory that characterizes syntactic categories in terms of functions between classes of expressions. The basic classes are names (N) and sentences (S). Intransitive verbs are symbols for functions which take a name and yield a sentence (written S/N), adverbs form compound verbs from verbs (for example, run fast) and so are (S/N)/(S/N), etc
- cationic detergent — a type of detergent in which the active part of the molecule is a positive ion (cation). Cationic detergents are usually quaternary ammonium salts and often also have bactericidal properties
- cauliflower fungus — a large edible white to yellowish cauliflowerlike mushroom, Sparassis radicata, widely distributed in North America.
- ceiling decoration — a plaster moulding for the centre of a ceiling; other decoration, such as coving
- central government — the government of a state or country
- chagos archipelago — group of islands in the Indian Ocean 1,180 mi (1,899 km) northeast of Mauritius, comprising the British Indian Ocean Territory: chief island, Diego Garcia
- character encoding — (character) (Or "character encoding scheme") A mapping between binary data values and character code positions (or "code points"). Early systems stored characters in a variety of ways, e.g. four six-bit characters in a 24-bit word, but around 1960, eight-bit bytes started to become the most common data storage layout, with each character stored in one byte, typically in the ASCII character set. In the case of ASCII, the character encoding is an identity mapping: code position 65 maps to the byte value 65. This is possible because ASCII uses only code positions representable as single bytes, i.e., values between 0 and 255. (US-ASCII only uses values 0 to 127, in fact.) From the late 1990s, there was increased use of larger character sets such as Unicode and many CJK coded character sets. These can represent characters from many languages and more symbols.
- charge conjugation — the mathematical operation of replacing every elementary particle by its antiparticle. Symbol: C.
- charge of quarters — a member of the armed forces who handles administration in his or her unit, esp after duty hours
- chinese gooseberry — kiwi (sense 2)
- chromolithographer — One engaged in chromolithography.
- cigar-store indian — a wooden statue of an American Indian, traditionally displayed at the entrance of cigar stores.
- clobbering machine — pressure to conform with accepted standards
- coast-guard cutter — a cutter used by the U.S. Coast Guard.
- collection charges — the charges levied to cover expenses for the collection of debt
- collision coverage — Collision coverage is insurance cover for vehicle accidents.
- come to grips with — If you come to grips with a problem, you consider it seriously, and start taking action to deal with it.
- commanding officer — A commanding officer is an officer who is in charge of a military unit.
- commercial college — a college providing tuition in commercial skills, such as shorthand and book-keeping
- common wintergreen — a plant (Pyrola minor) of temperate and arctic regions, having rounded leaves and small pink globose flowers: family Pyrolaceae
- compartmentalizing — Present participle of compartmentalize.
- complementary gene — one of a pair of genes, each from different loci, that together are required for the expression of a certain characteristic
- compressor program — a computer program that compresses data
- computer-generated — produced by a computer program
- concussion grenade — a grenade designed to inflict damage by the force of its detonation rather than by the fragmentation of its casing.
- configuration item — (jargon) Hardware or software, or an aggregate of both, which is designated by the project configuration manager (or contracting agency) for configuration management.
- congregate housing — a type of housing in which each individual or family has a private bedroom or living quarters but shares with other residents a common dining room, recreational room, or other facilities.
- congregationalists — a form of Protestant church government in which each local religious society is independent and self-governing.
- congress of vienna — the European conference held at Vienna from 1814–15 to settle the territorial problems left by the Napoleonic Wars
- conjugated protein — a biochemical compound consisting of a sequence of amino acids making up a simple protein to which another nonprotein group (a prosthetic group), such as a carbohydrate or lipid group, is attached
- connected subgraph — (mathematics) A connected graph consisting of a subset of the nodes and edges of some other graph.
- consecrated ground — ground that has been made or declared sacred or holy, and is therefore suitable for Christian burial
- conservation grade — relating to food produced using traditional methods where possible, and following strict specifications regarding animal feeds and welfare, the use of chemical fertilizers, wildlife conservation, and land management
- continental margin — the offshore zone, consisting of the continental shelf, slope, and rise, that separates the dry-land portion of a continent from the deep ocean floor.