19-letter words containing n, a, b
- brand contamination — the process by which the reputation of a particular brand or product becomes tarnished by adverse publicity
- brazen law of wages — the doctrine or theory that wages tend toward a level sufficient only to maintain a subsistence standard of living.
- breathing apparatus — an apparatus, usually consisting of tanks of air or oxygen and a mouthpiece, that enables the wearer to breath in difficult conditions such as a smoke-filled building
- briggsian logarithm — common logarithm.
- brown paper bag bug — (programming) A programming bug that is so stupid that it makes the programmer want to put a brown paper bag over his head.
- bug tracking system — (programming) (BTS) A system for receiving and filing bugs reported against a software project, and tracking those bugs until they are fixed. Most major software projects have their own BTS, the source code of which is often available for use by other projects. Well known BTSs include GNATS, Bugzilla, and Debbugs.
- building contractor — an individual or company that contracts for the construction of houses, etc
- buildings insurance — insurance which covers buildings
- bulbourethral gland — Cowper's gland
- business accounting — the keeping of detailed accounts relating to a business or businesses
- buster brown collar — a medium-sized, starched collar with rounded edges, lying flat on the shoulders, worn by women and girls.
- buy a pig in a poke — to buy, get, or agree to something without sight or knowledge of it in advance
- by leaps and bounds — with unexpectedly rapid progess
- by one's bootstraps — by one's own efforts; unaided
- california bluebell — either of two plants, Phacelia campanularia or P. minor, of southern California, having ovate leaves and bell-shaped blue or purple flowers.
- california job case — a job case having sufficient spaces to contain both uppercase and lowercase letters and 37 additional characters of foundry type. Compare case2 (def 8).
- canterbury pilgrims — the pilgrims whose stories are told in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
- captain abstraction — The champion of the principles of abstraction and modularity, who protects unwary students on MIT's course 6.001 from the nefarious designs of Sergeant Spaghetticode and his vile concrete programming practices. See also spaghetti code.
- carbon dioxide snow — solid carbon dioxide, used as a refrigerant
- carbon steel piping — Carbon steel piping is pipes made of steel with carbon as the main alloying component, used for transporting fluids.
- cardbox for windows — (database) A database handling program, especially useful for scholars and librarians.
- caroline of ansbach — 1683–1737, wife of George II of Great Britain
- catch sb in the act — If you catch someone in the act, you discover them doing something wrong or committing a crime.
- cerebellar syndrome — a disease of the cerebellum characterized by unsteady movements and mispronunciation of words
- cerebrospinal fluid — the clear colourless fluid in the spaces inside and around the spinal cord and brain
- chargeable transfer — a transfer of value made as a gift during a person's lifetime that is not covered by a specific exemption and therefore gives rise to liability under inheritance tax
- chartered librarian — (in Britain) a librarian who has obtained a qualification from the Library Association in addition to a degree or diploma in librarianship
- checks and balances — competition and mutual restraint among the various branches of government
- chlorofluorocarbons — Plural form of chlorofluorocarbon.
- circulating library — a small library circulated in turn to a group of schools or other institutions
- cock and bull story — an absurd, improbable story presented as the truth: Don't ask him about his ancestry unless you want to hear a cock-and-bull story.
- cock-and-bull story — If you describe something that someone tells you as a cock-and-bull story, you mean that you do not believe it is true.
- combination therapy — a therapy that combines two or more drugs, or two or more treatments
- connecticut warbler — a North American wood warbler, Oporornis agilis, olive-green above with a gray head and throat and yellow below.
- contagious abortion — brucellosis of domestic cattle, an infectious disease characterized by spontaneous abortion and caused by the bacterium Brucella abortus; Bang's disease.
- contributing factor — something that is partly responsible for a development or phenomenon
- convergent boundary — a major geologic discontinuity or suture marking the juncture of lithospheric plates that have been joined by plate tectonics.
- coordination number — the number of coordinated species surrounding the central atom in a complex or crystal
- coronary thrombosis — A coronary thrombosis is the same as a coronary.
- cowboys and indians — a children's game in which players imitate the supposed behavior of cowboys and Indians in conflict, as in shooting, chasing, and capturing.
- creeping bent grass — a grass, Agrostis stolonifera, grown as a pasture grass in Europe and North America: roots readily from the stem
- cudgel one's brains — to think hard about a problem
- current liabilities — business liabilities maturing within a year
- darby and joan club — a club for elderly people
- database management — the maintenance of information stored in a computer system
- de broglie equation — the postulate of wave mechanics that a particle of mass m moving at a velocity v will have the properties of a wave of wavelength h / mv (de Broglie wavelength) where h is Planck's constant.
- deathbed confession — a confession that somebody makes just before he or she dies, usually relating to some long concealed crime or secret
- department of labor — the department of the U.S. federal government that promotes and improves the welfare, opportunities, and working conditions of wage earners. Abbreviation: DOL.
- dependable software — software reliability
- detective constable — a police officer who investigates crime and who is of the lowest rank