19-letter words containing n, a, b
- bacillary dysentery — shigellosis.
- baja california sur — a state of NW Mexico, in the S part of the Lower California peninsula. Capital: La Paz. Pop: 423 516 (2000). Area: 73 475 sq km (28 363 sq miles)
- balance of payments — A country's balance of payments is the difference, over a period of time, between the payments it makes to other countries for imports and the payments it receives from other countries for exports.
- balfour declaration — the statement made by Arthur Balfour in 1917 of British support for the setting up of a national home for the Jews in Palestine, provided that the rights of "existing non-Jewish communities" in Palestine could be safeguarded
- balloon angioplasty — angioplasty in which a balloon catheter is moved to a blocked area of a blood vessel where the balloon is inflated to expand or force open the vessel
- ballot-box stuffing — the act of illegally submitting more than one vote in a ballot in which only one vote is permitted
- bandar seri begawan — the capital of Brunei. Pop: 64 000 (2005 est)
- banff national park — a national reserve, 2585 sq. mi. (6695 sq. km), in the Rocky Mountains, in SW Alberta, Canada.
- bang for one's buck — value for money
- bank reconciliation — A bank reconciliation is the process of adjusting a bank statement to show transactions that have occurred since the date of issue, or a document showing this.
- banker's acceptance — a draft or bill of exchange drawn on a bank and accepted by it
- bankruptcy petition — an official request for protection under bankruptcy laws, which initiates bankruptcy proceedings
- bargaining position — the position of a person, group, or organization in a negotiation, with respect to their ability to achieve a deal which is favourable to themselves
- barometric gradient — pressure gradient
- batterie de cuisine — cooking utensils collectively; pots and pans, etc
- battle-ground state — a state of the U.S. in which the Democratic and Republican candidates both have a good chance of winning and that is considered key to the outcome of a presidential election: the swing states of Ohio and Indiana.
- battles of bull run — two battles fought at Manassas Junction near a stream named Bull Run, during the American Civil War (July, 1861 and August, 1862), in both of which the Federal army was routed by the Confederates
- be burnt to a crisp — If something is burnt to a crisp, it is completely burnt.
- be one's own master — If you say that you are your own master, you mean that your decisions are not controlled by other people and you are free to do what you want.
- beat someone hollow — to defeat someone thoroughly and convincingly
- beauty preparations — the cosmetics, creams etc used to improve someone's beauty
- beggar-my-neighbour — a card game in which one player tries to win all the cards of the other player
- behavioral genetics — an interdisciplinary field studying the effects of genetics and hereditary factors on animal and human behavior.
- behavioral medicine — an interdisciplinary field that uses the concepts and techniques of the behavioral sciences to improve physical and emotional health.
- behavioural science — the application of scientific methods to the study of the behaviour of organisms
- belgian east africa — a former Belgian trust territory in Africa, also (1924–62) Ruanda-Urundi, now the independent countries of Rwanda and Burundi.
- below par/under par — If you feel below par or under par, you feel tired and unable to perform as well as you normally do.
- bend over backwards — to make a special effort, esp in order to please
- benefit performance — a theatrical or musical performance in aid of charity
- benzylidene acetone — a colorless, crystalline, water-insoluble solid, C 10 H 10 O, having a vanillalike odor, used chiefly as a scent in the manufacture of perfume.
- beta-naphthyl group — See under naphthyl.
- betamethyl acrolein — crotonaldehyde.
- betwixt and between — in an intermediate, indecisive, or middle position
- bicarbonate of soda — Bicarbonate of soda is a white powder which is used in baking to make cakes rise, and also as a medicine for your stomach.
- big-leaved magnolia — evergreen magnolia.
- bilingual education — schooling in which those not fluent in the standard or national language are taught in their own language.
- binary large object — (database) (BLOB) A large block of data stored in a database, such as an image or sound file. A BLOB has no structure which can be interpreted by the database management system but is known only by its size and location.
- binding arbitration — dispute resolution
- binocular disparity — the small differences in the positions of the parts of the images falling on each eye that results when each eye views the scene from a slightly different position; these differences make stereoscopic vision possible
- binomial experiment — an experiment consisting of a fixed number of independent trials each with two possible outcomes, success and failure, and the same probability of success. The probability of a given number of successes is described by a binominal distribution
- black carpenter ant — a large, black ant, Camponotus pennsylvanicus, that lives in damp wood in nature or in houses, where it can cause considerable damage by boring or tunneling.
- blind carbon (copy) — a carbon copy of a letter sent to someone other than the addressee, with no indication on the original letter that such a copy has been sent
- blood-brain barrier — the barrier created by the walls of the capillaries of the brain that prevents certain substances, as most proteins and drugs, from passing from the blood into the brain tissue and cerebrospinal fluid
- blue-tongued lizard — a large Australian lizard, Tiliqua scincoides, characterized by having a cobalt-blue tongue.
- board certification — the process of certifying that a physician has passed an examination and met the standards of a professional organization representing a particular medical specialty.
- board of trade unit — a unit of electrical energy equal to 1 kilowatt-hour
- booker t washington — Booker T(aliaferro) [boo k-er tol-uh-ver] /ˈbʊk ər ˈtɒl ə vər/ (Show IPA), 1856–1915, U.S. reformer, educator, author, and lecturer.
- bound hand and foot — with hands and feet tied
- boundary commission — (in Britain) a body established by statute to undertake periodic reviews of the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies and to recommend changes to take account of population shifts
- bracket abstraction — (compiler) An algorithm which turns a term into a function of some variable. The result of using bracket abstraction on T with respect to variable v, written as [v]T, is a term containing no occurrences of v and denoting a function f such that f v = T. This defines the function f = (\ v . T). Using bracket abstraction and currying we can define a language without bound variables in which the only operation is monadic function application. See combinator.