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22-letter words containing l, r, a

  • automatic gain control — control of a radio receiver in which the gain varies inversely with the magnitude of the input, thus maintaining the output at an approximately constant level
  • bacillus thuringiensis — a bacterium used in genetically altered form in the biological control of budworms, gypsy moth larvae, Japanese beetles, and other insect pests. Abbreviation: B.t.
  • backward combatability — (humour)   /bak'w*d k*m-bat'*-bil'*-tee/ (Play on "backward compatibility") A property of hardware or software revisions in which previous protocols, formats, layouts, etc. are irrevocably discarded in favour of "new and improved" protocols, formats and layouts, leaving the previous ones not merely deprecated but actively defeated. (Too often, the old and new versions cannot definitively be distinguished, such that lingering instances of the previous ones yield crashes or other infelicitous effects, as opposed to a simple "version mismatch" message.) A backward compatible change, on the other hand, allows old versions to coexist without crashes or error messages, but too many major changes incorporating elaborate backward compatibility processing can lead to extreme software bloat. See also flag day.
  • backward compatibility — (jargon)   Able to share data or commands with older versions of itself, or sometimes other older systems, particularly systems it intends to supplant. Sometimes backward compatibility is limited to being able to read old data but does not extend to being able to write data in a format that can be read by old versions. For example, WordPerfect 6.0 can read WordPerfect 5.1 files, so it is backward compatible. It can be said that Perl is backward compatible with awk, because Perl was (among other things) intended to replace awk, and can, with a converter, run awk programs. See also: backward combatability. Compare: forward compatible.
  • bacterial endocarditis — a bacterial infection of the inner lining of the heart, most often of the heart valves, characterized by fever, enlarged spleen, and heart murmur.
  • badlands national park — a national park in SW South Dakota: rock formations and animal fossils. 380 sq. mi. (985 sq. km).
  • baldassare castiglione — Baldassare [bahl-dahs-sah-re] /ˌbɑl dɑsˈsɑ rɛ/ (Show IPA), 1478–1529, Italian diplomat and author.
  • ballad of reading gaol — a poem (1898) by Oscar Wilde.
  • ballistic galvanometer — a type of galvanometer for measuring surges of current. After deflection the instrument returns slowly to its original reading
  • baptismal regeneration — the doctrine that regeneration and sanctification are received in and through baptism.
  • bartolome de las casas — Bartolomé de las [bahr-taw-law-me th e lahs] /ˌbɑr tɔ lɔˈmɛ ðɛ lɑs/ (Show IPA), Las Casas, Bartolomé de.
  • basal body temperature — the lowest temperature the body reaches in the resting state, typically during sleep. It is usually measured on waking
  • benjamin franklin wade — Benjamin Franklin, 1800–78, U.S. lawyer and antislavery politician.
  • benzenecarboxylic acid — benzoic acid.
  • bereavement counsellor — a person giving advice to bereaved people to help them cope with their grief
  • bernoulli's lemniscate — Analytic Geometry. lemniscate.
  • better late than never — If you say better late than never when someone has done something, you think they should have done it earlier.
  • bidirectional printing — (hardware)   A feature of a printer whose printer head can print both when moving left to right and when moving right to left. Also known as "boustrophedonic".
  • big bend national park — a national park in W Texas, on the Rio Grande. 1080 sq. mi. (2800 sq. km).
  • biological engineering — bioengineering.
  • biomedical engineering — bioengineering (def 1).
  • black mercuric sulfide — a crystalline, water-insoluble, poisonous compound, HgS, occurring as a coarse, black powder (black mercuric sulfide) or as a fine, bright-scarlet powder (red mercuric sulfide) used chiefly as a pigment and as a source of the free metal.
  • bleeding-heart liberal — a person of left-wing or liberal views who is deemed to be excessively soft-hearted
  • block diagram compiler — (simulation, language)   (BDL) A block diagram simulation tool, with associated language.
  • block redundancy check — Longitudinal Redundancy Check
  • blue-winged kookaburra — a related smaller bird D. Leachii, of tropical Australia and New Guinea
  • bone marrow transplant — the transplantation of bone marrow from donor to recipient
  • bone-marrow transplant — Surgery. a technique in which a small amount of bone marrow is withdrawn by a syringe from a donor's pelvic bone and injected into a patient whose ability to make new blood cells has been impaired by a disease, as anemia or cancer, or by exposure to radiation.
  • book of original entry — a book in which transactions are recorded before being transferred into a ledger.
  • borderline personality — Psychiatry. a personality disorder characterized by instability in many areas, as mood, identity, self-image, and behavior, and often manifested by impulsive actions, suicide attempts, inappropriate anger, or depression.
  • boundary value problem — any of a series of problems occurring in the solution of a differential equation with boundary conditions.
  • brachiocephalic artery — a major artery, arising from the arch of the aorta, that supplies blood to the right arm and the head.
  • bread-and-butter model — Naval Architecture. a wooden hull model carved from a number of horizontal planks glued together to represent the outlines of the various decks.
  • bridge of san luis rey — a novel (1927) by Thornton Wilder.
  • british library method — (algorithm)   Brute force searching. According to legends circulating in the 1970s, in the British Library books are searched for by examining each book sequentially in the first shelf, then the next shelf, continuing until the book is found or the entire library has been searched. The term was referred to in a Dutch coursebook, "Inleiding In De Informatica" (Introduction to Informatics) from a course given by C.H.A. Koster and Th.A. Zoethout. This was based on a course given at the TU Berlin.
  • british national party — a far-right political party
  • british virgin islands — a UK Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, consisting of 36 islands in the E Virgin Islands: formerly part of the Federation of the Leeward Islands (1871–1956). Capital: Road Town, on Tortola. Pop: 31 912 (2013 est). Area: 153 sq km (59 sq miles)
  • bug-for-bug compatible — Same as bug-compatible, with the additional implication that much tedious effort went into ensuring that each (known) bug was replicated.
  • by all manner of means — certainly; of course
  • calculus of variations — a branch of calculus concerned with maxima and minima of definite integrals
  • calderón (de la barca) — ˈPe‧dro (ˈpɛðʀɔ) ; peˈthr^ō) 1600-81; Sp. playwright
  • carboxymethylcellulose — a white, water-soluble polymer derived from cellulose, used as a coating and sizing for paper and textiles, a stabilizer for various foods, and an appetite suppressor.
  • cargo cult programming — (programming, humour)   A style of (incompetent) programming dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. A cargo cult programmer will usually explain the extra code as a way of working around some bug encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the reason the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully understood (compare shotgun debugging, voodoo programming). The term "cargo cult" is a reference to aboriginal religions that grew up in the South Pacific after World War II. The practices of these cults centre on building elaborate mockups of aeroplanes and military style landing strips in the hope of bringing the return of the god-like aeroplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war. Hackish usage probably derives from Richard Feynman's characterisation of certain practices as "cargo cult science" in his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" (W. W. Norton & Co, New York 1985, ISBN 0-393-01921-7).
  • carpal tunnel syndrome — a condition characterized by pain and tingling in the fingers, caused by pressure on a nerve as it passes under the ligament situated across the front of the wrist
  • catalyst transfer line — A catalyst transfer line is equipment which provides a smooth and constant catalyst flow.
  • categorical imperative — (in the ethics of Kant) the unconditional moral principle that one's behaviour should accord with universalizable maxims which respect persons as ends in themselves; the obligation to do one's duty for its own sake and not in pursuit of further ends
  • central african empire — a former name (1976–79) of Central African Republic.
  • central locking device — a small device that controls the central locking on a motor vehicle
  • central nervous system — Your central nervous system is the part of your nervous system that consists of the brain and spinal cord.
  • challenge to the array — an objection by counsel to the whole panel of jurors called to a trial
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