15-letter words containing n, o, r, t
- attorney-at-law — a lawyer qualified to represent in court a party to a legal action
- auditor general — (in Canada) a federal official responsible for auditing government departments and making an annual report
- augmented roman — a writing system based on an expanded English alphabet, consisting of 43 characters representing different phonemes of spoken English, used for teaching beginners to read. Abbreviation: I.T.A., i.t.a.
- autocorrelation — the condition occurring when successive items in a series are correlated so that their covariance is not zero and they are not independent
- autofluorescent — Of, pertaining to, or exhibiting autofluorescence.
- autotransformer — a transformer in which part of the winding is common to both primary and secondary circuits
- autotransfusion — a process in which a patient receives some of his or her own blood in a transfusion rather than a donor's blood
- autotransplants — Plural form of autotransplant.
- back projection — a method of projecting pictures onto a translucent screen so that they are viewed from the opposite side, used esp in films to create the illusion that the actors in the foreground are moving
- backup rotation — (operating system) Any system for re-using backup media, e.g. magnetic tape. One extreme would be to use the same media for every backup (e.g. copy disk A to disk B), the other extreme would be to use new media every time. The trade-off is between the cost of buying and storing media and the ability to restore any version of any file. One example is the Grandfather, Father, Son (GFS) scheme.
- baconian theory — the theory attributing the authorship of Shakespeare's plays to Francis Bacon.
- badminton court — the court on which games of badminton are played
- balance control — a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.
- bandstop filter — A bandstop filter is a filter designed to eliminate all frequencies within a band of frequencies.
- banking product — one of the various services offered by a bank to its customers: mortgages, loans, insurance etc
- bar examination — a written examination to determine if one is qualified to practice law in a particular jurisdiction.
- bargain counter — a store counter on which goods are displayed for sale at reduced prices
- barn-door skate — an Atlantic skate, Raja laevis, that grows to a length of 4 feet (1.2 meters) or more.
- barry mountains — a mountain range in SE Australia, in E Victoria: part of the Australian Alps
- be raring to go — If you say that you are raring to go, you mean that you are very eager to start doing something.
- be short on sth — If someone or something is short on a particular good quality, they do not have as much of it as you think they should have.
- beast of burden — A beast of burden is an animal such as an ox or a donkey that is used for carrying or pulling things.
- beat generation — members of the generation that came to maturity in the 1950s, whose rejection of the social and political systems of the West was expressed through contempt for regular work, possessions, traditional dress, etc, and espousal of anarchism, communal living, drugs, etc
- beef stroganoff — a dish of thin strips of beef cooked with onions, mushrooms, and seasonings, served in a sour-cream sauce
- before the wind — with the wind coming from astern
- bello horizonte — a city in SE Brazil.
- benedict arnold — Benedict, 1741–1801, American general in the Revolutionary War who became a traitor.
- benefit concert — a concert to raise money for charity
- bergamot orange — a small Asian spiny rutaceous tree, Citrus bergamia, having sour pear-shaped fruit
- bernoulli trial — one of a sequence of independent experiments each of which has the same probability of success, such as successive throws of a die, the outcome of which is described by a binomial distribution
- beta conversion — (theory) A term from lambda-calculus for beta reduction or beta abstraction.
- beurre noisette — a sauce of butter cooked until golden or nut brown, sometimes flavored with capers, vinegar, herbs, etc.
- bicycle touring — the activity of touring on a bicycle
- bidirectionally — in a bidirectional manner
- big bang theory — In astronomy the big bang theory is a theory that suggests that the universe was created as a result of an extremely large explosion.
- binary notation — a number system having a base of two, numbers being expressed by sequences of the digits 0 and 1: used in computing, as 0 and 1 can be represented electrically as off and on
- bioastronautics — the study of the effects of space flight on living organisms
- biscuit tortoni — an individual portion of tortoni, frozen and served in a small cup, often topped with ground almonds.
- bits per second — (communications, unit) (bps, b/s) The unit in which data rate is measured. For example, a modem's data rate is usually measured in kilobits per second. In 1996, the maximum modem speed for use on the PSTN was 33.6 kbps, rising to 56 kbps in 1997. Note that kilo- (k), mega- (M), etc. in data rates denote powers of 1000, not 1024.
- black operation — a covert and undocumented military operation
- black snakeroot — a tall bugbane, Cimicifuga racemosa, of the buttercup family, of eastern North America, having thin, tapering, toothed or deeply cut leaflets and branched clusters of small, white flowers.
- blasting powder — a form of gunpowder made with sodium nitrate instead of saltpeter, used chiefly for blasting rock, ore, etc.
- blossom-end rot — a disease of tomato and pepper caused by a deficiency of calcium, characterized by decay at the blossom end of the fruit.
- blotch printing — a fabric-printing method in which the ground color is transferred from the cylinder and the motif retains the original hue of the cloth.
- boa constrictor — A boa constrictor is a large snake that kills animals by wrapping itself round their bodies and squeezing them to death. Boa constrictors are found mainly in South and Central America and the West Indies.
- body toning bar — a weighted exercise bar made of steel encased in a layer of foam, used for toning and strength training.
- bohemian forest — a mountain range between the SW Czech Republic and SE Germany. Highest peak: Arber, 1457 m (4780 ft)
- booster cushion — an extra seat or cushion placed on an existing seat for a child to sit on in a car
- border incident — an incident, usually fighting, on a border between countries
- boston marriage — (especially in 19th-century New England) an intimate friendship between two women often maintaining a household together.