16-letter words containing l, e, t, r, s
- ballast resistor — ballast (def 5a).
- ballast-resistor — Nautical. any heavy material carried temporarily or permanently in a vessel to provide desired draft and stability.
- ballistic camera — a camera for tracking missiles launched at night.
- baluster measure — an antique liquid measure usually made of pewter, having a concave top on a convex base.
- band-pass filter — a filter that transmits only those currents having a frequency lying within specified limits
- bartholomeu dias — Bartholomeu [bahr-too-loo-me-oo] /ˌbɑr tʊ lʊˈmɛ ʊ/ (Show IPA), c1450–1500, Portuguese navigator: discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope.
- bastard culverin — a 16th-century cannon, smaller than a culverin, firing a shot of between 5 and 8 pounds (11 and 17.6 kg).
- bearing pedestal — an independent support for a bearing, usually incorporating a bearing housing
- belted-bias tire — a motor-vehicle tire of the same construction as a bias-ply tire but with an added belt of steel or a strong synthetic material under the tread.
- berners-lee, tim — Tim Berners-Lee
- bertillon system — a system formerly in use for identifying persons, esp criminals, by means of a detailed record of physical characteristics
- bertrand russell — (person) (1872-1970) A British mathematician, the discoverer of Russell's paradox.
- bias-belted tire — belted-bias tire.
- bimetallic strip — a strip consisting of two metals of different coefficients of expansion welded together so that it buckles on heating: used in thermostats, etc
- biometeorologist — the scientific study of the effects of natural or artificial atmospheric conditions, as temperature and humidity, on living organisms.
- bleeder resistor — a resistor connected across the output terminals of a power supply in order to improve voltage regulation and to discharge filter capacitors
- block-structured — (language) Any programming language in which sections of source code contained within pairs of matching delimiters such as "" and "" (e.g. in C) or "begin" and "end" (e.g. Algol) are executed as a single unit. A block of code may be the body of a subroutine or function, or it may be controlled by conditional execution (if statement) or repeated execution (while statement, for statement, etc.). In all but the most primitive block structured languages a variable's scope can be limited to the block in which it is declared. Block-structured languages support structured programming where each block can be written without detailed knowledge of the inner workings of other blocks, thus allowing a top-down design approach. See also abstract data type, module.
- blunt instrument — something such as a hammer, used as a weapon
- bootstrap loader — (operating system) A short program loaded from non-volatile storage and used to bootstrap a computer. On early computers great efforts were expended on making the bootstrap loader short, in order to make it easy to toggle in via the front panel switches. It was just clever enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from punched cards or paper tape), to which it handed control. This program in turn read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer "pulled itself up by its bootstraps" to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap loader is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the "boot block". When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it. A diskless workstation can use bootp to load its OS from the network.
- border leicester — a breed of sheep originally developed in the border country between Scotland and England by crossing English Leicesters with Cheviots: large numbers in Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand. It has a long white fleece with no wool on the head
- bouquet larkspur — a plant, Delphinium grandiflorum, of eastern Asia, having blue or whitish flowers and hairy fruit.
- bracknell forest — a unitary authority in SE England, in E Berkshire. Pop: 110 100 (2003 est). Area: 109 sq km (42 sq miles)
- breakfast cereal — a type of food made from a cereal plant and commonly eaten at breakfast
- bright-blindness — blindness occurring in sheep grazing pastures heavily infested with bracken
- bring sb to heel — If you bring someone to heel, you force them to obey you.
- bristlecone pine — a coniferous tree, Pinus aristata, of the western US, bearing cones with bristle-like prickles: one of the longest-lived trees, useful in radiocarbon dating
- brittany spaniel — a short-tailed French bird dog that typically has a smooth orange- or liver-and-white coat
- brittle diabetes — uncontrolled insulin disorder
- brothel-creepers — soft-soled men's shoes that were originally popular in the 1950s
- bullet-resistant — not allowing bullets to pass through
- bulletproof vest — a protective garment
- bundled software — software sold as part of a package with computers or other hardware or software
- burn oneself out — to undergo rapid combustion or consume fuel in such a way as to give off heat, gases, and, usually, light; be on fire: The fire burned in the grate.
- butterfly scheme — A parallel version of Scheme for the BBN Butterfly computer.
- butterfly stroke — a swimming stroke in which the arms are plunged forward together in large circular movements
- calcium arsenate — a toxic, white powder, Ca3(AsO4)2, used as an insecticide in the form of a spray or dust
- calculate a risk — If you calculate a risk, you decide how likely an event is, whether the insurer should underwrite the risk, and at what cost.
- call to quarters — a bugle call shortly before taps, notifying soldiers to retire to their quarters
- canterbury bells — a cultivated bellflower (Campanula medium) with white, pink, or blue cuplike flowers
- canterbury tales — an unfinished literary work by Chaucer, largely in verse, consisting of stories told by pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury
- capital reserves — the money which a company holds in reserve
- carboxylesterase — (enzyme) Any enzyme that catalyses the hydrolysis of a carboxylic ester.
- cardinal virtues — the most important moral qualities, traditionally justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude
- cascade particle — the least massive member of the xi particle family.
- catachrestically — In a catachrestic way.
- category listing — A category listing is a list of different product categories such as menswear, womenswear, and childrenswear.
- celebrity status — the prominence of film star, footballer, musician etc who is constantly photographed and written about in tabloids and magazines
- celestial empire — Chinese Empire
- celestial sphere — an imaginary sphere of infinitely large radius enclosing the universe so that all celestial bodies appear to be projected onto its surface
- characteristical — Also, characteristical. pertaining to, constituting, or indicating the character or peculiar quality of a person or thing; typical; distinctive: Red and gold are the characteristic colors of autumn.