16-letter words containing i, b, c
- double centering — a method of extending a survey line by taking the average of two foresights, one with the telescope direct and one with it inverted, made each time by transiting the telescope after a backsight.
- double precision — using twice the normal amount of storage, as two words rather than one, to represent a number.
- double-clutching — (of a bird) to produce a second clutch of eggs after the first has been removed, usually for hatching in an incubator.
- duplicate bridge — a form of contract bridge used in tournaments in which contestants play the identical series of deals, with each deal being scored independently, permitting individual scores to be compared.
- eclipsing binary — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
- economic embargo — a legal stoppage of commerce, usually taken by one nation or group of nations to harm the economy of another nation or group, often to force a political change
- 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).
- electric blanket — electrically-heated bedcover
- embarkation card — an official document that allows travellers to leave a country by boarding a ship or plane
- endocannabinoids — Plural form of endocannabinoid.
- executive member — a member of an executive committee
- exhibition match — a sports match which is not part of a competition but instead serves the function of demonstrating the skills of the players
- experience table — an actuarial table, esp a mortality table based on past statistics
- 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
- fibonacci number — a number in the Fibonacci sequence, each of which is the sum of the previous two
- fibonacci series — a sequence of integers in which each integer (Fibonacci number) after the second is the sum of the two preceding integers; specif., the series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . .
- fish or cut bait — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- flying ambulance — an aircraft used to take sick or injured people to hospital
- football special — a train service provided specially to transport football supporters to and from a match
- forced vibration — Forced vibration is a type of vibration in which a force is repeatedly applied to a mechanical system.
- gabriel, richard — Richard Gabriel
- galvanic battery — battery (def 1a).
- gibberellic acid — a gibberellin C 18 H 21 O 4 COOH, produced as a metabolite by the fungus Gibberella fujikuroi, used as a stimulator of plant growth.
- 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
- hairbrush cactus — a stout, spiny cactus, Pachycereus pecten-aboriginum, of Mexico, having white flowers and bristly fruits sometimes used locally as combs.
- hayes-compatible — (communications) A description of a modem which understands the same set of commands as one made by Hayes.
- hit a brick wall — unable to continue or make progress because of a hindrance
- horseback riding — activity: riding a horse
- huckleberry finn — (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) a novel (1884) by Mark Twain.
- huntington beach — a city in SW California, SE of Los Angeles.
- hydrobromic acid — a colorless or faintly yellow corrosive liquid, HBr, an aqueous solution of hydrogen bromide.
- hypersusceptible — hypersensitive (def 2).
- icterine warbler — a European variety of tree warbler (Hippolais icterina )
- imperceptibility — very slight, gradual, or subtle: the imperceptible slope of the road.
- imperfectability — The quality of not being perfectable; of being forever imperfect.
- imperfectibility — The state or quality of being imperfectible.
- impracticability — The quality or condition of being impracticable.
- inaccessibleness — The quality or state of being inaccessible or unreachable.
- inapplicableness — The state or quality of being inapplicable; inapplicability.
- incombustibility — The quality or state of being incombustible.
- incommensurables — Plural form of incommensurable.
- incomprehensible — impossible to understand or comprehend; unintelligible.
- incomprehensibly — impossible to understand or comprehend; unintelligible.
- inconceivability — (uncountable) The quality of being inconceivable.
- inconsolableness — The quality of being inconsolable.
- incontestability — incapable of being contested; not open to dispute; incontrovertible: incontestable proof.
- incontravertable — Misspelling of incontrovertible.
- incontrovertible — not controvertible; not open to question or dispute; indisputable: absolute and incontrovertible truth.
- incontrovertibly — not controvertible; not open to question or dispute; indisputable: absolute and incontrovertible truth.
- inconvertibility — The condition of being inconvertible.