12-letter words containing k, s
- 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.
- 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 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.
- block system — the system whereby a railway is divided up into separate sections of track where only one train can travel at a time
- blockbusting — A blockbusting film or book is one that is very successful, usually because it is very exciting.
- blocked shoe — a dancing shoe with a stiffened toe that enables a ballet dancer to dance on the tips of the toes
- bloodsucking — any animal that sucks blood, especially a leech.
- blue-sky law — a state law regulating the trading of securities: intended to protect investors from fraud
- bluestocking — A bluestocking is an intellectual woman.
- bolshevikism — the doctrines, methods, or procedure of the Bolsheviks.
- book matches — safety matches made of paper and fastened into a small cardboard folder
- book of odes — a collection of 305 poems compiled in the 6th century b.c. by Confucius.
- book signing — a prearranged and publicized event at which an author signs copies of their latest book, often with individual dedications to purchasers
- book society — book club.
- bookcrossing — the practice of deliberately leaving books in places where they will be found and read by other people
- boskop skull — a portion of a human skull found in South Africa, of undetermined relationship and geological age: formerly associated with a hypothetical Boskop race
- bradykinesia — abnormal slowness of physical movement, esp as an effect of Parkinson's disease
- brake assist — a part of a vehicle's braking system that automatically boosts braking pressure in an emergency situation
- bread basket — If an area or region is described as the bread basket of a country, it provides a lot of the food for that country because crops grow very easily there. It therefore produces wealth for the country.
- bread-basket — a basket or similar container for bread or rolls.
- breaststroke — Breaststroke is a swimming stroke which you do lying on your front, moving your arms and legs horizontally in a circular motion.
- brick cheese — a ripened, semisoft American cheese shaped like a brick and containing many small holes
- bright spark — If you say that some bright spark had a particular idea or did something, you mean that their idea or action was clever, or that it seemed clever but was silly in some way.
- brinkmanship — Brinkmanship is a method of behaviour, especially in politics, in which you deliberately get into dangerous situations which could result in disaster but which could also bring success.
- brooks range — a mountain range in N Alaska. Highest peak: Mount Isto, 2761 m (9058 ft)
- 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.
- browser skin — a changeable decorative background for a browser
- brush turkey — any of several gallinaceous birds, esp Alectura lathami, of New Guinea and Australia, having a black plumage: family Megapodidae (megapodes)
- buck's party — a party for men only, esp one held for a man before he is married
- buffer stock — a stock of a commodity built up by a government or trade organization with the object of using it to stabilize prices
- bulk modulus — a coefficient of elasticity of a substance equal to minus the ratio of the applied stress (p) to the resulting fractional change in volume (dV/V) in a specified reference state (dV/V is the bulk strain)
- burkina faso — an inland republic in W Africa: dominated by Mossi kingdoms (10th–19th centuries); French protectorate established in 1896; became an independent republic in 1960; consists mainly of a flat savanna plateau. Official language: French; Mossi and other African languages also widely spoken. Religion: mostly animist, with a large Muslim minority. Currency: franc. Capital: Ouagadougou. Pop: 17 812 961 (2013 est). Area: 273 200 sq km (105 900 sq miles)
- bushelbasket — a rounded basket with a capacity of one bushel
- bushwhacking — to make one's way through woods by cutting at undergrowth, branches, etc.
- businesslike — If you describe someone as businesslike, you mean that they deal with things in an efficient way without wasting time.
- by-a-whisker — whiskers, a beard.
- caked breast — a painful hardening of one or more lobules of a lactating breast, caused by stagnation of milk in the secreting ducts and accumulation of blood in the expanded veins; stagnation mastitis.
- call in sick — afflicted with ill health or disease; ailing.
- camiknickers — women's knickers attached to a camisole top
- cancer stick — a cigarette.
- candlesticks — Plural form of candlestick.
- cankeredness — spitefulness or crabbedness
- cantankerous — Someone who is cantankerous is always finding things to argue or complain about.