13-letter words containing l, a, d
- arm and a leg — the upper limb of the human body, especially the part extending from the shoulder to the wrist.
- armored cable — an electric cable having a metal protective covering
- armored scale — any of a family (Diaspididae) of scale insects characterized by a hard, waxy secretion that covers the body: many armored scales are serious pests of trees and shrubs
- armour-plated — An armour-plated vehicle or building has a hard metal covering in order to protect it from gunfire and other missiles.
- assembly code — assembly language
- asteroid belt — the concentrations of asteroids that move around the sun mainly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter
- at loose ends — in an unsettled, disorganized, or confused condition
- at the double — at twice normal marching speed
- at the fiddle — engaged in an illegal or fraudulent undertaking
- attitudinally — in a manner expressive of personal attitudes or emotions
- audio-lingual — pertaining to listening comprehension and speaking, especially in learning a foreign language.
- australia day — a public holiday in Australia, commemorating the landing of the British in 1788: observed on January 26
- autopolyploid — (of cells, organisms, etc) having more than two sets of haploid chromosomes inherited from a single species
- ayurvedically — As a practitioner of Ayurveda; in an Ayurvedic way.
- baal merodach — Marduk.
- bab el mandeb — a strait between SW Arabia and E Africa, connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden
- back and fill — to manoeuvre the sails by alternately filling and emptying them of wind to navigate in a narrow place
- back-end load — the final charges of commission and expenses made by an investment trust, insurance policy, etc, when the investor is paid out
- backdoor play — an offensive tactic whereby a player breaks away from a defender to receive a pass near the baseline in order to make a quick layup.
- backpedalling — to retard the forward motion by pressing backward on the pedal, especially of a bicycle with coaster brakes.
- backward roll — a gymnastic roll that is performed with the feet going first and the rest of the body and the head following
- bacteriocidal — Alternative spelling of bactericidal.
- baffin island — the largest island of the Canadian Arctic, between Greenland and Hudson Bay. Area: 476 560 sq km (184 000 sq miles)
- bail bondsman — an individual or firm that lends bail money to defendants awaiting trial
- bailey bridge — a temporary bridge made of prefabricated steel panels that can be rapidly assembled
- baily's beads — the brilliant points of sunlight that appear briefly around the moon, just before and after a total eclipse
- balanced diet — a diet consisting of the proper quantities and proportions of foods needed to maintain health or growth.
- balanced fund — a mutual fund made up of both stocks and bonds
- balanced line — a transmission line in which the oppositely directed components are symmetrical with respect to each other and to the ground.
- balanced step — any of a series of staircase winders so planned that they are nearly as wide at the inside of the stair as the adjacent fliers.
- balanced tree — (algorithm) An optimisation of a tree which aims to keep equal numbers of items on each subtree of each node so as to minimise the maximum path from the root to any leaf node. As items are inserted and deleted, the tree is restructured to keep the nodes balanced and the search paths uniform. Such an algorithm is appropriate where the overheads of the reorganisation on update are outweighed by the benefits of faster search. A B-tree is a kind of balanced tree that can have more than two subtrees at each node (i.e. one that is not restricted to being a binary tree).
- ball and ring — a simplified bead-and-reel turning, used especially in English and American furniture of the 17th century.
- ball handling — the control of the ball, as in basketball or soccer, by skillful dribbling and accurate passing.
- ballad stanza — a four-line stanza, often used in ballads, in which the second and fourth lines rhyme and have three stresses each and the first and third lines are unrhymed and have four stresses each
- ballet dancer — a man or woman who takes part in ballet dancing, usually professionally
- balloon shade — a window shade that when raised is gathered into a series of puffy festoons created by inverted pleats in the fabric.
- baltic shield — the wide area of ancient rock in Scandinavia
- banded purple — any color having components of both red and blue, such as lavender, especially one deep in tone.
- banderilleros — Plural form of banderillero.
- bar billiards — a table game in pubs, etc, in which short cues are used to pocket balls into holes scoring various points and guarded by wooden pegs that incur penalties if they are knocked over
- bar-and-grill — a place where food and alcoholic drinks are served to customers; a combined barroom and grillroom.
- barbados aloe — a tropical aloe, Aloe barbadensis (or A. vera), of the lily family, having clusters of yellow flowers: its juice is used medicinally.
- barnacle code — (programming, humour) Any piece of code (usually a static method) that has been appended to a class where it doesn't logically belong, due to a lack of anywhere else to put it.
- barnyard golf — Informal: Facetious. the game of horseshoes.
- barred spiral — a spiral galaxy in which the arms originate at the ends of a bar-shaped nucleus
- barrel-shaped — having the shape of a barrel
- basel accords — the three sets of rules, Basel I, Basel II, and Basel III, for regulating the banking industry, drawn up by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision
- bastard title — half title (def 1).
- bastard-title — Also called bastard title. the first printed page of certain books, appearing after the end papers and before the title page and containing only the title of the book.
- batan islands — a group of islands in the Philippines, north of Luzon. Capital: Basco. Pop: 16 467 (2000). Area: 197 sq km (76 sq miles)