20-letter words containing n, a, b, i
- regenerative braking — Regenerative braking is a form of braking in electric vehicles in which the loss of kinetic energy from braking is stored and then fed back later to provide power to the electric motor.
- rocky mountain basic — (language) The BASIC language used by Hewlett Packard on their 680x0-based computers. Rocky Mountain Basic is good for interfaces to IEEE 488 controls and contains many mathematical and matrix functions. It has about 600 commands. Typical applications include automatic test stations.
- royal british legion — an organization founded in 1921 to provide services and assistance for former members of the armed forces
- saint john ambulance — an organization that provides first aid and first-aid training
- self-belaying system — (in climbing) equipment used to pay out rope as required and thus enable a climber to self-belay
- set the ball rolling — to open or initiate (an action, discussion, movement, etc)
- seven against thebes — (used with a plural verb) Classical Mythology. seven heroes, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Eteoclus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Polynices, and Tydeus, who led an expedition against Thebes to depose Eteocles in favor of his brother Polynices: the expedition failed, but the Epigoni, the sons of the Seven against Thebes, conquered the city ten years later.
- short back and sides — If a man has a short back and sides, his hair is cut very short at the back and sides with slightly thicker, longer hair on the top of the head.
- spectroscopic binary — a binary star having components that are not sufficiently separated to be resolved by a telescope, known to be a binary only bythe variations in wavelength of emitted light that are detected by a spectroscope.
- spherical aberration — variation in focal length of a lens or mirror from center to edge, due to its spherical shape.
- splice the mainbrace — to issue and partake of an extra allocation of alcoholic spirits
- spontaneous abortion — miscarriage (def 1).
- spontaneous-abortion — Also called voluntary abortion. the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy.
- spotted crane's-bill — the American wild geranium, Geranium maculatum.
- st. james-assiniboia — a city in SE Manitoba, in S central Canada: suburb of Winnipeg.
- stare sb in the face — If a situation or the answer to a problem is staring you in the face, it is very obvious, although you may not be immediately aware of it.
- step into the breach — If you step into the breach, you do a job or task which someone else was supposed to do or has done in the past, because they are suddenly unable to do it.
- subscription library — a commercial lending library
- tchebycheff equation — a differential equation of the form (1 − x 2) d 2 y/dx 2 − x dy/dx + n 2 y = 0, where n is any nonnegative integer.
- television broadcast — sth shown on tv
- tetrahydrocannabinol — a compound, C 21 H 30 O 2 , that is the physiologically active component in cannabis preparations (marijuana, hashish, etc.) derived from the Indian hemp plant or produced synthetically. Abbreviation: THC.
- therapeutic abortion — abortion performed when a woman's pregnancy endangers her health.
- to be a warning shot — to be a warning
- to be walking on air — If you say that you are walking on air or floating on air, you mean that you feel extremely happy about something.
- to bring up the rear — If a person or vehicle is bringing up the rear, they are the last person or vehicle in a moving line of them.
- to burst into flames — If something bursts into flames or bursts into flame, it suddenly starts burning strongly.
- to get your bearings — to find out where one is or to find out what one should do next
- to have it in for sb — If someone has it in for you, they do not like you and they want to make life difficult for you.
- to sb's disadvantage — If something is to your disadvantage or works to your disadvantage, it creates difficulties for you.
- travelling-wave tube — an electronic tube in which an electron beam interacts with a distributed high-frequency magnetic field so that energy is transferred from the beam to the field
- tropical disturbance — a very weak, or incipient, tropical cyclone.
- trustee savings bank — a British financial institution which offered savings facilities for small investors and was managed by unpaid trustees. Depositors had no voting rights and no say in financial or managerial matters. The bank is now a public limited company with the same rights and services as other banks and only retains the title in the abbreviated form TSB.
- tubing head pressure — The tubing head pressure is the pressure on the tubing, which is measured at the wellhead.
- united arab emirates — group of Arabian states
- united arab republic — a name given the union of Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961; after that, the official name of Egypt alone until 1971. Abbreviation: U.A.R.
- universal serial bus — (hardware, standard) (USB) An external peripheral interface standard for communication between a computer and external peripherals over an inexpensive cable using biserial transmission. USB is intended to replace existing serial ports, parallel ports, keyboard, and monitor connectors and be used with keyboards, mice, monitors, printers, and possibly some low-speed scanners and removable hard drives. For faster devices existing IDE, SCSI, or emerging FC-AL or FireWire interfaces can be used. USB works at 12 Mbps with specific consideration for low cost peripherals. It supports up to 127 devices and both isochronous and asynchronous data transfers. Cables can be up to five metres long and it includes built-in power distribution for low power devices. It supports daisy chaining through a tiered star multidrop topology. A USB cable has a rectangular "Type A" plug at the computer end and a square "Type B" plug at the peripheral end. Before March 1996 Intel started to integrate the necessary logic into PC chip sets and encourage other manufacturers to do likewise. It was widely available by 1997. Later versions of Windows 95 included support for it. It was standard on Macintosh computers in 1999. The USB 2.0 specification was released in 2000 to allow USB to compete with Firewire etc. USB 2.0 is backward compatible with USB 1.1 but works at 480 Mbps.
- upper income bracket — a grouping of the highest earning tax payers
- vertical combination — the integration within one company of individual businesses working separately in related phases of the production and sale of a product.
- voice over broadband — a transmission technique that enables a user to make and receive telephone calls over a broadband connection
- walton and weybridge — a city in Surrey, SE England: a London suburb.
- war of the rebellion — American Civil War.
- war production board — the board (1942–45) that supervised and regulated the production and sale of matériel essential to the logistics of World War II. Abbreviation: WPB, W.P.B.
- wardrobe malfunction — an embarrassing situation caused by the clothes a person is wearing
- webster's dictionary — Informal. a dictionary of the English language, especially American English, such as Dictionary.com.
- westminster assembly — a convocation that met at Westminster, London, 1643–49, and formulated the articles of faith (Westminster Confession of Faith) that are accepted as authoritative by most Presbyterian churches.
- wilson cloud chamber — cloud chamber.
- wintergreen barberry — a Chinese evergreen shrub, Berberis julianae, of the barberry family, having spiny leaves, dark green above, pale beneath, clusters of yellow flowers, and bluish-black fruit.