0%

16-letter words containing l, s, e, r

  • bird's-eye maple — a cut of sugar maple wood used especially for veneers, having a wavy grain with many dark, circular markings.
  • bleeder resistor — a resistor connected across the output terminals of a power supply in order to improve voltage regulation and to discharge filter capacitors
  • blind man's rule — a carpenter's rule having large numbers to permit its reading in dim light.
  • blind salamander — any of several North American salamanders, especially of the genera Typhlotriton, Typhlomolge, and Haideotriton, that inhabit underground streams or deep wells and have undeveloped eyes and scant pigmentation.
  • 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.
  • blow one's cover — to be or serve as a covering for; extend over; rest on the surface of: Snow covered the fields.
  • bluegrass region — a region in central Kentucky, famous for its horse farms and fields of bluegrass.
  • blunt instrument — something such as a hammer, used as a weapon
  • boarding kennels — a place where dog owners can pay to have their dogs looked after while they are away
  • bob's your uncle — everything is or will turn out all right
  • bois de rose oil — rosewood oil.
  • 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.
  • bordelaise sauce — a dark sauce made from meat stock, flour, wine, onions, seasonings, etc., served over broiled meat
  • 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
  • bornholm disease — an epidemic virus infection characterized by pain round the base of the chest
  • boulogne-sur-mer — a port in N France, on the English Channel. Pop: 44 859 (1999)
  • 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)
  • braille embosser — Braille printer
  • 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
  • broad-shouldered — having broad shoulders
  • brothel-creepers — soft-soled men's shoes that were originally popular in the 1950s
  • brussels griffon — one of a Belgian breed of toy dogs having a thick, wiry, reddish-brown coat.
  • budgie smugglers — men's close-fitting swimming trunks
  • bullet-resistant — not allowing bullets to pass through
  • bulletproof vest — a protective garment
  • bullock's oriole — a common oriole, Icterus galbula bullockii, of western North America: a subspecies of the northern oriole.
  • bundle of nerves — a very nervous person
  • bundled software — software sold as part of a package with computers or other hardware or software
  • burge's language — Unnamed functional language based on lambda-calculus. Recursive Programming techniques", W.H. Burge, A-W 1975.
  • 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.
  • bush huckleberry — a huckleberry shrub, Gaylussacia dumosa, having sticky, hairy twigs, white or pink flowers, and tasteless but edible black fruit.
  • 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
  • canada bluegrass — a Eurasian grass, Poa compressa, naturalized in North America, having creeping rootstocks and bluish-green leaves.
  • canadian soldier — the mayfly.
  • cannonball serve — (in tennis) a very fast low serve
  • 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
  • capsule wardrobe — a collection of clothes and accessories that includes only items considered essential
  • carbon bisulfide — carbon disulfide
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?