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19-letter words containing i, t, o

  • binocular disparity — the small differences in the positions of the parts of the images falling on each eye that results when each eye views the scene from a slightly different position; these differences make stereoscopic vision possible
  • binomial experiment — an experiment consisting of a fixed number of independent trials each with two possible outcomes, success and failure, and the same probability of success. The probability of a given number of successes is described by a binominal distribution
  • bird's-foot trefoil — any of various creeping leguminous Eurasian plants of the genus Lotus, esp L. corniculatus, with red-tipped yellow flowers and seed pods resembling the claws of a bird
  • bismuth oxychloride — a white, crystalline, water-insoluble powder, BiOCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of pigments, face powders, and artificial pearls.
  • bit-paired keyboard — (hardware)   (Obsolete, or "bit-shift keyboard") A non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have originated with the Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several years on early computer equipment. The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see EOU), so the only way to generate the character codes from keystrokes was by some physical linkage. The design of the ASR-33 assigned each character key a basic pattern that could be modified by flipping bits if the SHIFT or the CTRL key was pressed. In order to avoid making the thing more of a Rube Goldberg kluge than it already was, the design had to group characters that shared the same basic bit pattern on one key. Looking at the ASCII chart, we find: high low bits bits 0000 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111 1000 1001 010 ! " # $ % & ' ( ) 011 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 This is why the characters !"#$%&'() appear where they do on a Teletype (thankfully, they didn't use shift-0 for space). This was *not* the weirdest variant of the QWERTY layout widely seen, by the way; that prize should probably go to one of several (differing) arrangements on IBM's even clunkier 026 and 029 card punches. When electronic terminals became popular, in the early 1970s, there was no agreement in the industry over how the keyboards should be laid out. Some vendors opted to emulate the Teletype keyboard, while others used the flexibility of electronic circuitry to make their product look like an office typewriter. These alternatives became known as "bit-paired" and "typewriter-paired" keyboards. To a hacker, the bit-paired keyboard seemed far more logical - and because most hackers in those days had never learned to touch-type, there was little pressure from the pioneering users to adapt keyboards to the typewriter standard. The doom of the bit-paired keyboard was the large-scale introduction of the computer terminal into the normal office environment, where out-and-out technophobes were expected to use the equipment. The "typewriter-paired" standard became universal, "bit-paired" hardware was quickly junked or relegated to dusty corners, and both terms passed into disuse.
  • black-tailed godwit — a large wading bird with a very long beak, Limosa limosa, found in W and Central Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia
  • bloodstock industry — the breeding and training of racehorses
  • blow the whistle on — to make a clear musical sound, a series of such sounds, or a high-pitched, warbling sound by the forcible expulsion of the breath through a small opening formed by contracting the lips, or through the teeth, with the aid of the tongue.
  • blue-ringed octopus — a highly venomous octopus, Octopus maculosus, of E Australia which exhibits blue bands on its tentacles when disturbed
  • blue-tongued lizard — a large Australian lizard, Tiliqua scincoides, characterized by having a cobalt-blue tongue.
  • board certification — the process of certifying that a physician has passed an examination and met the standards of a professional organization representing a particular medical specialty.
  • board of trade unit — a unit of electrical energy equal to 1 kilowatt-hour
  • boat-tailed grackle — a large grackle, Quiscalus major, of the southeastern U.S., that folds its tail into a shape resembling the keel of a boat.
  • booker t washington — Booker T(aliaferro) [boo k-er tol-uh-ver] /ˈbʊk ər ˈtɒl ə vər/ (Show IPA), 1856–1915, U.S. reformer, educator, author, and lecturer.
  • bordering countries — countries that share a border with a particular country
  • box-office receipts — the money earned from ticket sales for a film or play
  • bracket abstraction — (compiler)   An algorithm which turns a term into a function of some variable. The result of using bracket abstraction on T with respect to variable v, written as [v]T, is a term containing no occurrences of v and denoting a function f such that f v = T. This defines the function f = (\ v . T). Using bracket abstraction and currying we can define a language without bound variables in which the only operation is monadic function application. See combinator.
  • brand contamination — the process by which the reputation of a particular brand or product becomes tarnished by adverse publicity
  • breath of fresh air — sth new
  • briggsian logarithm — common logarithm.
  • bright young things — young, fun-loving, fashionable upper-class people, esp of the 1920s
  • brimstone butterfly — a common yellow butterfly, Gonepteryx rhamni, of N temperate regions of the Old World: family Pieridae
  • bring into the open — to make evident or public
  • brokered convention — a party convention in which many delegates are pledged to favorite sons who use their blocs of votes to bargain with leading candidates who lack a majority of delegate support.
  • brush-tailed possum — any of several widely-distributed Australian possums of the genus Trichosurus
  • building contractor — an individual or company that contracts for the construction of houses, etc
  • business accounting — the keeping of detailed accounts relating to a business or businesses
  • butabarbital sodium — a barbiturate, C 10 H 15 N 2 NaO 3 , used as a sedative and hypnotic.
  • cairngorm mountains — a mountain range of NE Scotland: part of the Grampians. Highest peak: Ben Macdui, 1309 m (4296 ft); designated a national park in 2003
  • capacitive coupling — the connection of two or more circuits by means of a capacitor.
  • cape-disappointment — Cape, a cape in SW Washington state, projecting into the Pacific Ocean on the N of the mouth of the Columbia River.
  • captain abstraction — The champion of the principles of abstraction and modularity, who protects unwary students on MIT's course 6.001 from the nefarious designs of Sergeant Spaghetticode and his vile concrete programming practices. See also spaghetti code.
  • captain of industry — You can refer to the owners or senior managers of industrial companies as captains of industry.
  • captains courageous — a novel (1897) by Rudyard Kipling.
  • carbon steel piping — Carbon steel piping is pipes made of steel with carbon as the main alloying component, used for transporting fluids.
  • carnot refrigerator — a device operating on the Carnot cycle in which the first temperature is higher than the second.
  • cartilaginification — The formation of cartilage.
  • cask of amontillado — a short story (1846) by Edgar Allan Poe.
  • cast one's lot with — one of a set of objects, as straws or pebbles, drawn or thrown from a container to decide a question or choice by chance.
  • catalytic converter — A catalytic converter is a device which is fitted to a car's exhaust to reduce the pollution coming from it.
  • catalytic reforming — Catalytic reforming is a process that converts petroleum refinery naphthas to high-octane blending components.
  • caterpillar tractor — a tractor powered by a Caterpillar track
  • catherine of aragon — 1485–1536, first wife of Henry VIII of England and mother of Mary I. The annulment of Henry's marriage to her (1533) against papal authority marked an initial stage in the English Reformation
  • cathodic protection — a technique for protecting metal structures, such as steel ships and pipelines, from electrolytic corrosion by making the structure the cathode in a cell, either by applying an electromotive force directly or by putting it into contact with a more electropositive metal
  • cathodoluminescence — luminescence caused by irradiation with electrons (cathode rays)
  • celestial longitude — the angular distance measured eastwards from the vernal equinox to the intersection of the ecliptic with the great circle passing through a celestial body and the poles of the ecliptic
  • central reservation — The central reservation is the strip of ground, often covered with grass, that separates the two sides of a major road.
  • cerebral thrombosis — formation of a clot or other blockage in one of the blood vessels of the brain, often followed by neurologic damage; a type of stroke.
  • chamber of deputies — the lower house of the legislature of certain countries, as Italy.
  • champagne socialist — a professed socialist who enjoys an extravagant lifestyle
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