14-letter words containing i, b
- attainableness — The state or quality of being attainable.
- attemptability — the capability of being attempted or condition of being attemptable
- attractability — The quality of being attractable.
- auction bridge — a variety of bridge, now generally superseded by contract bridge, in which all the tricks made score towards the game
- aussie battler — an Australian working-class person
- austrian blind — a window blind consisting of rows of vertically gathered fabric that may be drawn up to form a series of ruches
- autoantibodies — Plural form of autoantibody.
- autobiographer — a person who writes the story of his or her own life
- autobiographic — marked by or dealing with one's own experiences or life history; of or in the manner of an autobiography: autobiographical material; an autobiographical novel.
- auxiliary verb — a verb used to indicate the tense, voice, mood, etc, of another verb where this is not indicated by inflection, such as English will in he will go, was in he was eating and he was eaten, do in I do like you, etc
- availabilities — suitable or ready for use; of use or service; at hand: I used whatever tools were available.
- aviation badge — wings.
- aviation-badge — Also called aviation badge. Military Informal. a badge bearing the image of a spread pair of bird's wings with a distinctive center design, awarded to an aircrewman on completion of certain requirements.
- babbling brook — a cook
- babbling error — (networking) An Ethernet node attempting to transmit more than 1518 data bytes - the largest allowed Ethernet packet. This is why the Maximum Transmission Unit for IP traffic on Ethernet is 1500.
- babies'-breath — baby's breath
- baby-battering — the physical abuse of a baby or young child
- back formation — the invention of a new word on the assumption that a familiar word is derived from it. The verbs edit and burgle were so created from editor and burglar
- back to basics — If you talk about getting back to basics, you are suggesting that people have become too concerned with complicated details or new theories, and that they should concentrate on simple, important ideas or activities.
- back-formation — the analogical creation of one word from another word that appears to be a derived or inflected form of the first by dropping the apparent affix or by modification.
- back-pedalling — a retreat from or a retraction of a previously held view
- back-to-basics — stressing simplicity and adherence to fundamental principles: The movement suggests a back-to-basics approach to living for those whose lives have become complicated.
- backbreakingly — In a backbreaking manner.
- backflap hinge — Building Trades. flap (def 20a).
- backing singer — a singer providing a vocal accompaniment for a pop singer or pop number
- backing vocals — a vocal accompaniment for a pop singer
- backscattering — the scattering of rays or particles at angles to the original direction of motion of greater than 90°
- backscratching — a long-handled device for scratching one's own back.
- backside cache — (hardware, processor) An implementation of secondary cache memory that allows it to be directly accessed by the CPU. Backside cache is used by Apple Computers, Inc. in their PowerPC G3 processor. Previous PowerPC processors used the system bus to access both secondary cache and main memory. In the PowerPC G3 a dedicated bus handles only CPU/cache transactions. This bus can operate faster than the system bus thus improving the overall performance of the processor. The term apparently derives from the relocation of the secondary cache from the motherboard to the processor card itself, i.e. on the backside of the processor card.
- backside-front — backend-to.
- backup pumpkin — pumpkin
- bacteriologist — a branch of microbiology dealing with the identification, study, and cultivation of bacteria and with their applications in medicine, agriculture, industry, and biotechnology.
- bacteriophages — Plural form of bacteriophage.
- bacteriostasis — inhibition of the growth and reproduction of bacteria, esp by the action of a chemical agent
- bacteriostatic — the prevention of the further growth of bacteria.
- bactrian camel — a two-humped camel, Camelus bactrianus, used as a beast of burden in the cold deserts of central Asia
- badger baiting — an illegal sport in which dogs are encouraged to draw a badger out of its burrow and attack it
- balance bridge — a bascule bridge
- balance spring — hairspring.
- balance weight — a weight used in machines to counterbalance a part, as of a crankshaft
- ball and chain — (formerly) a heavy iron ball attached to a chain and fastened to a prisoner
- ball cartridge — a cartridge containing a primer and a ball and a full charge of powder
- ball indicator — a flight instrument that measures the angle of roll about an aircraft's horizontal axis, thereby indicating whether or not the aircraft is skidding or slipping.
- ball lightning — a luminous electrically charged ball occasionally seen during electrical storms
- ball-and-chain — a heavy iron ball fastened by a chain to a prisoner's leg.
- ballet slipper — a heelless cloth or leather slipper worn by ballet dancers.
- ballistic wind — a single wind vector that would have the same net effect on the trajectory of a projectile as the varying winds encountered in flight.
- ballon d'essai — a project or policy put forward experimentally to gauge reactions to it
- ballot rigging — Ballot rigging is the act of illegally changing the result of an election by producing a false record of the number of votes.
- balm of gilead — any of several trees of the burseraceous genus Commiphora, esp C. opobalsamum of Africa and W Asia, that yield a fragrant oily resin