16-letter words containing i, s, o, t, n
- benoit samuelson — Joan (Joan Benoit) born 1957, U.S. distance runner: first Olympic marathon women's winner, 1984.
- bertillon system — a system formerly in use for identifying persons, esp criminals, by means of a detailed record of physical characteristics
- beside the point — If you say that something is beside the point, you mean that it is not relevant to the subject that you are discussing.
- beta abstraction — [lambda-calculus] The conversion of an expression to an application of a lambda abstraction to an argument expression. Some subterm of the original expression becomes the argument of the abstraction and the rest becomes its body. E.g. 4+1 --> (\ x . x+1) 4 The opposite of beta abstraction is beta reduction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion.
- bicapitalisation — The act said to have been performed on trademarks (such as PostScript, NeXT, NeWS, VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalisation. Too many marketroid types think this sort of thing is really cute, even the 2,317th time they do it. Compare studlycaps.
- binet-simon test — an intelligence test that consists of questions, problems, and things to do, graded in terms of mental age
- bird's-nest soup — a rich spicy Chinese soup made from the outer part of the nests of SE Asian swifts of the genus Collocalia
- birthday honours — (in Britain) honorary titles conferred on the official birthday of the sovereign
- bite one's nails — to chew off the ends of one's fingernails
- boatswain's mate — a job classification in the US navy
- boatswain's pipe — a whistle used formerly to give orders on board ship
- bodily functions — physical processes such as urination and defecation
- bonneville flats — an area of salt flats in the W part of Great Salt Lake Desert, in NW Utah: site of automobile speed tests.
- boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
- boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
- branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
- bring sb to book — If you bring someone to book, you punish them for an offence or make them explain their behaviour officially.
- bring sb to heel — If you bring someone to heel, you force them to obey you.
- bring to justice — to capture, try, and usually punish (a criminal, an outlaw, etc)
- bristlecone pine — a coniferous tree, Pinus aristata, of the western US, bearing cones with bristle-like prickles: one of the longest-lived trees, useful in radiocarbon dating
- british honduras — Belize
- british longhair — a breed of large cat with a semi-long thick soft coat
- bronchial asthma — asthma.
- building society — In Britain, a building society is a business which will lend you money when you want to buy a house. You can also invest money in a building society, where it will earn interest. Compare savings and loan association.
- burning question — urgent matter for discussion
- business account — a bank account or type of bank account used for business transactions rather than personal ones
- button one's lip — to stop talking: often imperative
- bypass operation — an operation involving redirection of blood flow, either to avoid a diseased blood vessel or in order to perform heart surgery
- cable television — Cable television is a television system in which signals are sent along wires rather than by radio waves.
- cache on a stick — (architecture) (COAST) Intel Corporation attempt to's standardise the modular L2 cache subsystem in Pentium-based computers. A COAST module should be about 4.35" wide by 1.14" high. According to earlier specifications from Motorola, a module between 4.33" and 4.36" wide, and between 1.12" and 1.16" high is within the COAST standard. Some module vendors, including some major motherboard suppliers, greatly violate the height specification. Another COAST specification violated by many suppliers concerns clock distribution in synchronous modules. The specification requires that the clock tree to each synchronous chip be balanced, i.e. equal length from edge of the connector to individual chips. An unbalanced clock tree increases reflections and noise. For a 256 kilobyte cache module the standard requires the same clock be used for both chips but some vendors use separate clocks to reduce loading on the clock driver and hence increase the clock speed. However, this creates unbalanced loading in other motherboard configurations, such as motherboards with soldered caches in the system.
- call in question — a sentence in an interrogative form, addressed to someone in order to get information in reply.
- capsizing moment — the moment of an upsetting couple.
- carrot and stick — If an organization has a carrot and stick approach or policy, they offer people things in order to persuade them to do something and punish them if they refuse to do it.
- cash transaction — a piece of business, for example an act of buying or selling something
- casting director — the person in charge of choosing of actors for a production
- castor-oil plant — a tall euphorbiaceous Indian plant, Ricinus communis, cultivated in tropical regions for ornament and for its poisonous seeds, from which castor oil is extracted
- cataractogenesis — The formation of a cataract.
- category listing — A category listing is a list of different product categories such as menswear, womenswear, and childrenswear.
- cavity resonator — a conducting surface enclosing a space in which an oscillating electromagnetic field can be maintained, the dimensions of the cavity determining the resonant frequency of the oscillations. It is used in microwave devices for frequencies exceeding 300 megahertz
- cesarean section — Also called Cesarean section, C-section. an operation by which a fetus is taken from the uterus by cutting through the walls of the abdomen and uterus.
- characterisation — (British spelling) Alternative form of characterization.
- checking deposit — a deposit on which cheques may be drawn
- chemoluminescent — (chemistry) Exhibiting chemoluminescence.
- chorioamnionitis — Inflammation of the fetal membranes (amnion and chorion) due to a bacterial infection, most often associated with prolonged labour.
- choriomeningitis — (medicine) A form of cerebral meningitis associated with inflammation of the choroid plexus.
- christening robe — a long white dress worn by a baby at his or her christening
- christian action — an inter-Church movement formed in 1946 to promote Christian ideals in society at large
- chymotrypsinogen — the inactive precursor of chymotrypsin
- circumscriptions — Plural form of circumscription.
- cisaconitic acid — a stereoisomer of 1-propene-1,2,3 tricarboxylic acid, C 6 H 6 O 6 , an important intermediate in the Krebs cycle.