15-letter words containing i, b, r, a
- brush discharge — a slightly luminous electrical discharge between points of high charge density when the charge density is insufficient to cause a spark or around sharp points on a highly charged conductor because of ionization of air molecules in their vicinity
- brushback pitch — a fast ball deliberately thrown at or too near a batter's head
- buckinghamshire — a county in SE central England, containing the Vale of Aylesbury and parts of the Chiltern Hills: the geographic and ceremonial county includes Milton Keynes, which became an independent unitary authority in 1997. Administrative centre: Aylesbury. Pop (excluding Milton Keynes): 478 000 (2003 est). Area (excluding Milton Keynes): 1568 sq km (605 sq miles)
- buffalo soldier — (formerly, especially among American Indians) a black soldier.
- bug fix release — (programming) A release which introduces no new features, but which merely aims to fix bugs in previous releases. All too commonly new bugs are introduced at the same time.
- building trades — the trades and professions concerned with the creation and finishing of buildings, such as carpenters, plasterers, masons, electricians, etc.
- bulimia nervosa — a disorder characterized by compulsive overeating followed by vomiting: sometimes associated with anxiety about gaining weight
- bureau of mines — a division of the Department of the Interior, created in 1910, that studies the nation's mineral resources and inspects mines.
- buried treasure — A surprising piece of code found in some program. While usually not wrong, it tends to vary from crufty to bletcherous, and has lain undiscovered only because it was functionally correct, however horrible it is. Used sarcastically, because what is found is anything *but* treasure. Buried treasure almost always needs to be dug up and removed. "I just found that the scheduler sorts its queue using bubble sort! Buried treasure!"
- burt l standish — Burt L. pseudonym of Gilbert Patten.
- buryat republic — a constituent republic of SE central Russia, on Lake Baikal: mountainous, with forests covering over half the total area. Capital: Ulan-Ude. Pop: 981 000 (2002). Area: 351 300 sq km (135 608 sq miles)
- butterfly chair — a lightweight chair consisting of a piece of canvas, leather, etc. slung from a framework of metal bars
- cabinet picture — a small easel painting, usually under 3 feet (0.9 meters) in width and formerly exhibited in a cabinet or special room.
- cabinet scraper — a scraper used in preparing a wood surface for sanding.
- calcined baryta — baryta (def 1).
- calcined-baryta — Also called calcined baryta, barium oxide, barium monoxide, barium protoxide. a white or yellowish-white poisonous solid, BaO, highly reactive with water: used chiefly as a dehydrating agent and in the manufacture of glass.
- calcium blocker — any of a group of drugs that prevent the influx of calcium into excitable tissues such as smooth muscle of the heart or arterioles, used in the treatment of angina, hypertension, and certain arrhythmias.
- calcium carbide — a grey salt of calcium used in the production of acetylene (by its reaction with water) and calcium cyanamide. Formula: CaC2
- calydonian boar — a savage boar sent by Artemis to destroy Calydon, a city in Aetolia, because its king had neglected to sacrifice to her. It was killed by Meleager, the king's son
- camelot library — (library)
- campaign ribbon — a distinctively colored ribbon, either on a small, narrow bar or in the form of a strip, representing a military campaign participated in by the wearer.
- cantilever beam — a long thick straight-sided piece of wood, metal, concrete, etc that is fixed at one end and is free at the other
- carbazotic acid — picric acid.
- carbon fixation — the process by which plants assimilate carbon from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to form metabolically active compounds
- carbon monoxide — Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas that is produced especially by the engines of vehicles.
- carboxylic acid — any of a class of organic acids containing the carboxyl group
- cardinal beetle — any of various large N temperate beetles of the family Pyrochroidae, such as Pyrochroa serraticornis, typically scarlet or partly scarlet in colour
- cardinal number — A cardinal number is a number such as 1, 3, or 10 that tells you how many things there are in a group but not what order they are in. Compare ordinal number.
- caribbean plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, encompassing the Central American portion of North America, the Caribbean Sea, and the islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico, as well as the Leeward and Windward Islands; bordered north and south by the North and South American Plates and west by the Cocos Plate.
- cartesian doubt — willful suspension of all interpretations of experience that are not absolutely certain: used as a method of deriving, by elimination of such uncertainties, axioms upon which to base theories.
- cartier-bresson — Henri (ɑ̃ri). 1908–2004, French photographer
- cartridge brass — brass composed of about 70 percent copper and 30 percent zinc.
- cattle breeding — the science or business of breeding and raising cattle
- centrifugal box — a revolving chamber, used in the spinning of manufactured filaments, in which the plastic fibers, subjected to centrifugal force, are slightly twisted and emerge in the form of yarn wound into the shape of a hollow cylinder.
- ceteris paribus — other things being equal
- cetti's warbler — a reddish-brown Eurasian warbler, Cettia cetti, with a distinctive song
- characterizable — Able to be characterized.
- child battering — child abuse in the form of battering
- child-battering — the physical abuse of a child by a parent or guardian, as by beating.
- chiller cabinet — a cupboard or chest in a shop where chilled foods and drinks are displayed and kept cool
- cinderella book — (publication) "Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation", by John Hopcroft and Jeffrey Ullman, (Addison-Wesley, 1979). So called because the cover depicts a girl (putatively Cinderella) sitting in front of a Rube Goldberg device and holding a rope coming out of it. On the back cover, the device is in shambles after she has (inevitably) pulled on the rope. See also book titles.
- circuit breaker — A circuit breaker is a device which can stop the flow of electricity around a circuit by switching itself off if anything goes wrong.
- circular buffer — (programming) An area of memory used to store a continuous stream of data by starting again at the beginning of the buffer after reaching the end. A circular buffer is usually written by one process and read by another. Separate read and write pointers are maintained. These are not allowed to pass each other otherwise either unread data would be overwritten or invalid data would be read. A circuit may implement a hardware circular buffer.
- circumambagious — in a round-about manner
- circumambiently — in a circumambient manner
- circumambulated — Simple past tense and past participle of circumambulate.
- circumambulates — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of circumambulate.
- circumnavigable — Able to be circumnavigated.
- claustrophobics — Plural form of claustrophobic.
- climb indicator — an instrument that shows the rate of ascent or descent of an aircraft, operating on a differential pressure principle.