17-letter words containing i, b, m
- self-incompatible — not capable of self-pollination.
- semi-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
- semi-permeability — permeable only to certain small molecules: a semipermeable membrane.
- sleeping problems — difficulties in getting to sleep or in staying asleep
- sodium bichromate — a red or orange crystalline, water-soluble solid, Na 2 Cr 2 O 7 ⋅2H 2 O, used as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of dyes and inks, as a corrosion inhibitor, a mordant, a laboratory reagent, in the tanning of leather, and in electroplating.
- sodium pyroborate — borax1 .
- steamboat springs — a town in NW Colorado: ski resort.
- stymphalian birds — a flock of predacious birds of Arcadia that were driven away and killed by Hercules as one of his labors.
- symbolic assembly — (language) An early system on the IBM 705.
- symbolic language — a specialized language dependent upon the use of symbols for communication and created for the purpose of achieving greater exactitude, as in symbolic logic or mathematics.
- synovial membrane — anatomy: connective tissue
- tabernacle mirror — a mirror of c1800, having columns and a cornice, usually gilt, with a painted panel over the mirror.
- take some beating — to be difficult to improve upon
- teething problems — If a project or new product has teething problems, it has problems in its early stages or when it first becomes available.
- temporomandibular — of, relating to, or situated near the hinge joint formed by the lower jaw and the temporal bone of the skull.
- terrorist bombing — the bombing of a place carried out in order to achieve some goal
- the establishment — a group or class of people having institutional authority within a society, esp those who control the civil service, the government, the armed forces, and the Church: usually identified with a conservative outlook
- the humber bridge — a single-span suspension bridge (1981) that crosses the Humber, with a main span of 1410 m (4626 ft)
- the-invisible-man — a novel (1897) by H.G. Wells.
- to eat humble pie — If you eat humble pie, you speak or behave in a way which tells people that you admit you were wrong about something.
- to read sb's mind — If you can read someone's mind, you know what they are thinking without them saying anything.
- triboluminescence — luminescence produced by friction, usually within a crystalline substance.
- tympanic membrane — eardrum.
- ultramicrobalance — a balance for weighing precisely, to a hundredth of a microgram or less, minute quantities of material.
- uncircumscribable — to draw a line around; encircle: to circumscribe a city on a map.
- uncle tom's cabin — an antislavery novel (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
- unix brain damage — Something that has to be done to break a network program (typically a mailer) on a non-Unix system so that it will interoperate with Unix systems. The hack may qualify as "Unix brain damage" if the program conforms to published standards and the Unix program in question does not. Unix brain damage happens because it is much easier for other (minority) systems to change their ways to match non-conforming behaviour than it is to change all the hundreds of thousands of Unix systems out there. An example of Unix brain damage is a kluge in a mail server to recognise bare line feed (the Unix newline) as an equivalent form to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return followed by a line feed. Such things can make even a hardened jock weep.
- user brain damage — (humour) (UBD) A description (usually abbreviated) used to close a trouble report obviously due to utter cluelessness on the user's part. Compare pilot error; opposite: PBD; see also brain-damaged, PEBCAK.
- variable-geometry — denoting an aircraft in which the wings are hinged to give the variable aspect ratio colloquially known as a swing-wing
- vertical mobility — movement from one social level to a higher one (upward mobility) or a lower one (downward mobility) as by changing jobs or marrying.
- vestibular system — the sensory mechanism in the inner ear that detects movement of the head and helps to control balance
- vitamin b complex — an important group of water-soluble vitamins containing vitamin B 1 , vitamin B 2 , etc.
- war establishment — the full wartime complement of men, equipment, and vehicles of a military unit
- wardrobe mistress — a woman in charge of keeping theatrical costumes cleaned, pressed, and in wearable condition.
- westminster abbey — a Gothic church in London, England.
- white book cd-rom — (hardware, standard) A more open CD-ROM standard than Green Book CD-ROM. All films mastered on CD-ROM after March 1994 use White Book. Like Green Book, it is ISO 9660 compliant, uses mode 2 form 2 addressing and can only be played on a CD-ROM drive which is XA (Extended Architecture) compatible. White book CDs are labelled "Video CD".