12-letter words containing k, l, a
- black muslim — a member of the Black Muslims
- black papers — unofficial papers criticizing government policy
- black pepper — Black pepper is pepper which is dark in colour and has been made from the dried berries of the pepper plant, including their black outer cases.
- black pewter — pewter composed of 60 percent tin and 40 percent lead.
- black plague — Great Plague.
- black poplar — a Eurasian tree, Populus nigra
- black powder — gunpowder as used in sports involving modern muzzleloading firearms
- black prince — Edward2 (Prince of Wales)
- black sapote — a tropical American tree, Diospyros digyna, related to the persimmon, having sweet, edible, green fruit that turns black when ripe.
- black scoter — a scoter of Eurasia and North America, Melanitta nigra, the adult male of which is black.
- black spruce — a coniferous tree, Picea mariana, of the northern regions of North America, growing mostly in cold bogs and having dark green needles
- black stream — a warm ocean current in the Pacific, flowing N along the E coast of Taiwan, NE along the E coast of Japan, and continuing in an easterly direction into the open Pacific.
- black sucker — a hog sucker, Hypentelium nigricans, of eastern U.S. streams.
- black tongue — canine pellagra.
- black velvet — a mixture of stout and champagne in equal proportions
- black walnut — a North American walnut tree, Juglans nigra, with hard dark wood and edible oily nuts
- black wattle — a small Australian acacia tree, A. mearnsii, with yellow flowers
- black-coated — (esp formerly) (of a worker) clerical or professional, as distinguished from commercial or industrial
- black-figure — pertaining to or designating a style of vase painting developed in Greece in the 7th and 6th centuries b.c., chiefly characterized by silhouetted figures painted in black slip on a red clay body, details incised into the design, and a two-dimensional structure of form and space.
- black-market — to black-marketeer.
- blackbirding — a common European thrush, Turdus merula, the male of which is black with a yellow bill.
- blackcurrant — In Europe, blackcurrants are a type of very small, dark purple fruits that grow in bunches on bushes.
- blackhearted — wicked; evil
- bladder kelp — any of various giant brown algae with air bladders that buoy up the leafy portions
- bladderwrack — any of several seaweeds of the genera Fucus and Ascophyllum, esp F. vesiculosus, that grow in the intertidal regions of rocky shores and have branched brown fronds with air bladders
- blank cheque — If someone is given a blank cheque, they are given the authority to spend as much money as they need or want.
- blanket bath — an all-over wash given to a person confined to bed
- blanket roll — a blanket or sleeping bag rolled into a cylindrical pack for easy carrying and outdoor use by hikers, soldiers, cowboys, etc., often with cooking utensils, food, and personal articles carried inside.
- blanket toss — a game in which a person is repeatedly tossed into the air and caught on an open blanket by a group of people who hold the blanket at its edges and stretch and relax it for each toss and catch.
- blatherskite — a talkative silly person
- bletherskate — a blatherer
- blister pack — a type of packet in which small items are displayed and sold, consisting of a transparent dome of plastic or similar material mounted on a firm backing such as cardboard
- block caving — a method of mining a large block of ore by systematically undercutting so the ore will cave. Compare cave (def 5a).
- block heater — an electrically operated immersion heater fitted either to enter the water hose or the water jacket surrounding the cylinder block of a motor to warm the coolant in cold weather.
- block island — an island off the coast of and a part of Rhode Island, at the E entrance to Long Island Sound.
- block signal — a fixed railroad signal governing the movements of trains entering and using a given section of track.
- blue-sky law — a state law regulating the trading of securities: intended to protect investors from fraud
- boating lake — a lake in a park where rowing boats can be hired
- boilermaking — metal-working in heavy industry; plating or welding
- booklet pane — Philately. any of a number of panes or small pages of postage stamps, stapled together into a booklet for the convenience of users.
- bracket lamp — a wall light that is attached to the wall by a bracket
- brake lining — a curved thin strip of an asbestos composition riveted to a brake shoe to provide it with a renewable surface
- break a leg! — good luck!
- brooks's law — (programming) "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" - a result of the fact that the expected advantage from splitting work among N programmers is O(N) (that is, proportional to N), but the complexity and communications cost associated with coordinating and then merging their work is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the square of N). The quote is from Fred Brooks, a manager of IBM's OS/360 project and author of "The Mythical Man-Month". The myth in question has been most tersely expressed as "Programmer time is fungible" and Brooks established conclusively that it is not. Hackers have never forgotten his advice; too often, management still does. See also creationism, second-system effect, optimism.
- brown hackle — an artificial fly having a peacock herl body, golden tag and tail, and brown hackle.
- bulk carrier — a ship that carries unpackaged cargo, usually consisting of a single dry commodity, such as coal or grain
- bullamakanka — an imaginary very remote and backward place
- bullock cart — a cart pulled by one or two bullocks
- burj khalifa — a slender tapering skyscraper in Dubai; completed in 2009; the world's tallest man-made structure, standing at 828m (2716 ft)
- bushelbasket — a rounded basket with a capacity of one bushel