15-letter words containing i, s, r, a
- bangtail muster — a roundup of cattle to be counted, each one having the hairs on its tail docked as it is counted
- baptism of fire — If someone who has just begun a new job has a baptism of fire, they immediately have to cope with very many severe difficulties and obstacles.
- barbizon school — a group of French painters of landscapes of the 1840s, including Théodore Rousseau, Daubigny, Diaz, Corot, and Millet
- barium stearate — a white, crystalline, water-insoluble solid, Ba(C 18 H 35 O 2) 2 , used chiefly as a waterproofing agent and as a lubricant.
- barium sulphate — a white insoluble fine dense powder, used as a pigment, as a filler for paper, rubber, etc, and in barium meals. Formula: BaSO4
- barley sandwich — a drink of beer, esp at lunch time
- barn conversion — the adaptation of a farm barn into a building serving a different use, such as a house or commercial premises
- barry mountains — a mountain range in SE Australia, in E Victoria: part of the Australian Alps
- 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).
- battleship gray — a subdued bluish gray.
- bear comparison — to be sufficiently similar in class or range to be compared with (something else), esp favourably
- béarnaise sauce — a creamy sauce, esp. for meat or fish, made of butter and egg yolks and flavored with wine, vinegar, shallots, and herbs
- berenice's hair — the constellation Coma Berenices
- beside the mark — not striking the point aimed at
- beta conversion — (theory) A term from lambda-calculus for beta reduction or beta abstraction.
- bias (ply) tire — a motor vehicle tire having a foundation of plies of rubberized cords in a crisscross pattern of lines diagonal to the center line of the tread
- 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.
- binomial series — an infinite series obtained by expanding a binomial raised to a power that is not a positive integer.
- bioastronautics — the study of the effects of space flight on living organisms
- biostratigraphy — the examination of the ages of rock strata by using fossils
- biot-savart law — the law that the magnetic induction near a long, straight conductor, as wire, varies inversely as the distance from the conductor and directly as the intensity of the current in the conductor.
- 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.
- blasting powder — a form of gunpowder made with sodium nitrate instead of saltpeter, used chiefly for blasting rock, ore, etc.
- boa constrictor — A boa constrictor is a large snake that kills animals by wrapping itself round their bodies and squeezing them to death. Boa constrictors are found mainly in South and Central America and the West Indies.
- boarding school — A boarding school is a school which some or all of the pupils live in during the school term. Compare day school.
- bohemian forest — a mountain range between the SW Czech Republic and SE Germany. Highest peak: Arber, 1457 m (4780 ft)
- borderline case — a person or thing that is not clearly classifiable as something
- boston marriage — (especially in 19th-century New England) an intimate friendship between two women often maintaining a household together.
- brachial plexus — a network of nerves in the armpits and neck, innervating the shoulders, arms, and hands.
- brachistochrone — the curve between two points through which a body moves under the force of gravity in a shorter time than for any other curve; the path of quickest descent
- brackett series — a series of lines in the infrared spectrum of hydrogen.
- bragging rights — notional privileges that are gained by defeating a close rival
- 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.
- branching rules — rules that are used to break down a complex problem into several smaller problems
- branchiostegous — branchiostegal.
- brand extension — the practice of using a well-known brand name to promote new products or services in unrelated fields
- bravais lattice — any of 14 possible space lattices found in crystals
- breaking strain — the amount of strain that, if applied to a particular material, will cause it to break
- breathing space — A breathing space is a short period of time between two activities in which you can recover from the first activity and prepare for the second one.
- breeding season — the time of year during which animals breed
- 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
- brillat-savarin — Anthelme (ɑ̃tɛlm). 1755–1826, French lawyer and gourmet; author of Physiologie du Goût (1825)
- bristol channel — an inlet of the Atlantic, between S Wales and SW England, merging into the Severn estuary. Length: about 137 km (85 miles)
- bristol fashion — clean and neat, with newly painted and scrubbed surfaces, brass polished, etc
- british america — British North America.
- british library — the British national library, formed in 1973 from the British Museum library and other national collections: housed mainly in the British Museum until 1997 when a purpose-built library in St Pancras, London, was completed