15-letter words containing i, d, r, s
- barley sandwich — a drink of beer, esp at lunch time
- basic anhydride — a compound formed by removing water from a more complex compound: an oxide of a nonmetal (acid anhydride) or a metal (basic anhydride) that forms an acid or a base, respectively, when united with water.
- basic autocoder — Early system on IBM 7070. Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959).
- basse-normandie — a region of NW France, on the English Channel: consists of the Cherbourg peninsula in the west rising to the Normandy hills in the east; mainly agricultural
- bathurst island — an island off the coast of N Nunavut, Canada, in the Arctic Archipelago: present south of the North Magnetic Pole nearby. 7609 sq. mi. (19,707 sq. km).
- bedford heights — a town in N Ohio.
- bedroom slipper — a soft shoe worn in the house
- beside the mark — not striking the point aimed at
- big sandy creek — a river in central Colorado, flowing NE and SE to the Arkansas River near Lamar: site of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre. 200 miles (322 km) long.
- biodestructible — biodegradable
- bird of passage — If you refer to someone as a bird of passage, you mean that they are staying in a place for a short time before going to another place.
- bird's eye view — You say that you have a bird's eye view of a place when you are looking down at it from a great height, so that you can see a long way but everything looks very small.
- bits per second — (communications, unit) (bps, b/s) The unit in which data rate is measured. For example, a modem's data rate is usually measured in kilobits per second. In 1996, the maximum modem speed for use on the PSTN was 33.6 kbps, rising to 56 kbps in 1997. Note that kilo- (k), mega- (M), etc. in data rates denote powers of 1000, not 1024.
- blasting powder — a form of gunpowder made with sodium nitrate instead of saltpeter, used chiefly for blasting rock, ore, etc.
- blessed trinity — Trinity (def 1).
- boarding school — A boarding school is a school which some or all of the pupils live in during the school term. Compare day school.
- boiled dressing — a cooked salad dressing thickened with egg yolks and often containing mustard.
- borderline case — a person or thing that is not clearly classifiable as something
- boustrophedonic — of or relating to lines written in opposite directions
- braille display — (hardware) (Or "refreshable braille display", "refreshable display") An electromechanical device that renders braille with tiny, independently controlled pins used to represent the state of dots in braille cells. Each pin, in its "on" state, raises above the top of its hole in the screen; in its "off" state, it drops below the top of its hole. Older systems used tiny solenoids to control the state of the pins; modern systems are piezoelectric. Typical dimensions of a braille display are 1 line of 40 cells, each cell of two-by-eight dots.
- brand extension — the practice of using a well-known brand name to promote new products or services in unrelated fields
- breeding season — the time of year during which animals breed
- bridge of sighs — a covered 16th-century bridge in Venice, between the Doges' Palace and the prisons, through which prisoners were formerly led to trial or execution
- brights-disease — a disease characterized by albuminuria and heightened blood pressure.
- brill's disease — a form of epidemic typhus fever in which the disease recurs years after the original infection
- bronze diabetes — hemochromatosis.
- brownfield site — a disused site envisaged for redevelopment
- 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
- buffalo soldier — (formerly, especially among American Indians) a black soldier.
- building trades — the trades and professions concerned with the creation and finishing of buildings, such as carpenters, plasterers, masons, electricians, etc.
- 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.
- calculated risk — a chance of failure, the probability of which is estimated before some action is undertaken.
- canadian forces — the official name for the military forces of Canada
- cardiac massage — a rhythmic compressing of the heart, using the hands to force blood through the blood vessels: an emergency medical procedure for treating heart failure
- cardinal points — the four main points of the compass: north, south, east, and west
- cardinal spider — a large house spider, Tegenaria parietina
- cardinal system — a system of coding navigational aids by shape, color, and number, according to their positions relative to navigational hazards.
- cardinal vowels — a set of theoretical vowel sounds, based on the shape of the mouth needed to articulate them, that can be used to classify the vowel sounds of any speaker in any language
- careers adviser — a person trained in giving vocational advice, esp in secondary, further, or higher education
- cartesian diver — a glass vessel partially filled with water and covered with an airtight membrane, containing a hollow object that is open at the bottom and contains just enough air to allow it to float. Pressing on the membrane compresses the air in the vessel and forces water into the object, causing it to sink; releasing the membrane causes it to rise.
- 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.
- cartridge brass — brass composed of about 70 percent copper and 30 percent zinc.
- cell disruption — Cell disruption is when a biological material becomes smaller to release proteins and enzymes.
- centipede grass — a slow-growing grass, Eremochloa ophiuroides, introduced into the U.S. from China and used for lawns in warm areas.
- central sudanic — a group of languages belonging to the Nilo-Saharan family, spoken in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, northern Uganda, southern Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic, and including Mangbetu.
- charles dickens — Charles (John Huf·fam) [huhf-uh m] /ˈhʌf əm/ (Show IPA), ("Boz") 1812–70, English novelist.
- chesterfieldian — of or like Lord Chesterfield; suave; elegant; polished
- cheval de frise — a portable obstacle, usually a sawhorse, covered with projecting spikes or barbed wire, for military use in closing a passage, breaking in a defensive wall, etc.
- cheval-de-frise — a portable barrier of spikes, sword blades, etc, used to obstruct the passage of cavalry