17-letter words containing n, p
- belleville spring — a spring having the form of a washer or dished disk with an open center, used for cushioning heavy loads with short motion.
- bent out of shape — very angry, upset, or agitated
- beyond comparison — outstanding, without equal
- beyond redemption — If you say that someone or something is beyond redemption, you mean that they are so bad it is unlikely that anything can be done to improve them.
- binary opposition — a relation between the members of a pair of linguistic items, as a pair of distinctive features, such that one is the absence of the other, as voicelessness and voice, or that one is at the opposite pole from the other, as stridency and mellowness.
- biological parent — a parent who has conceived (biological mother) or sired (biological father) rather than adopted a child and whose genes are therefore transmitted to the child.
- biological weapon — a weapon which uses a biological agent to harm people and other living organisms
- bjarne stroustrup — (person) The father of C++ and author of the C++ bible.
- blind carbon copy — a duplicate of anything written or typed, or a copy of an email or other electronic document, that is sent to someone whose name is not visible to the primary addressee. Abbreviation: bcc.
- blowout preventer — A blowout preventer is a valve that can be closed when there is uncontrolled flow of fluids.
- blowpipe analysis — a type of chemical analysis in which the intensely hot flame of a blowpipe vaporizes a mineral or other substance with a characteristically colored flame and a unique odor, so as to identify chemical elements in a substance
- body center plate — one of a pair of plates that fit together and support the body of a car on a truck, while allowing the truck to rotate with respect to the body. One plate (body center plate) is attached to the underside of the car body and the other (truck center plate) is part of the car truck.
- book depreciation — Book depreciation is depreciation in a company's internal financial records that is different from the amount that is used for taxes.
- boolean operation — any operation in which each of the operands and the result take one of two values.
- boothia peninsula — a peninsula of N Canada: the northernmost part of the mainland of North America, lying west of the Gulf of Boothia, an arm of the Arctic Ocean
- bottom-up testing — (programming) An integration testing technique that tests the low-level components first using test drivers for those components that have not yet been developed to call the low-level components for test. Compare bottom-up implementation.
- bradford spinning — a wool-spinning method in which the fibers are oiled prior to combing and subsequently spun into worsted yarn.
- branch prediction — (processor, algorithm) A technique used in some processors with instruction prefetch to guess whether a conditional branch will be taken or not and prefetch code from the appropriate location. When a branch instruction is executed, its address and that of the next instruction executed (the chosen destination of the branch) are stored in the Branch Target Buffer. This information is used to predict which way the instruction will branch the next time it is executed so that instruction prefetch can continue. When the prediction is correct (and it is over 90% of the time), executing a branch does not cause a pipeline break. Some later CPUs simply prefetch both paths instead of trying to predict which way the branch will go. An extension of the idea of branch prediction is speculative execution.
- brazilian peridot — a light yellowish-green tourmaline used as a gem: not a true peridot.
- bring up the rear — to be at the back in a procession, race, etc
- brocot escapement — a type of anchor escapement.
- brompton cocktail — an analgesic mixture, usually containing morphine and cocaine and sometimes other narcotic substances in an alcohol solution, administered primarily to advanced cancer patients.
- buckingham palace — the London residence of the British sovereign: built in 1703, rebuilt by John Nash in 1821–36 and partially redesigned in the early 20th century
- burton-upon-trent — a town in W central England, in E Staffordshire: famous for brewing. Pop: 43 784 (2001)
- business envelope — an envelope into which standard-size (81⁄2″ × 11″) letterhead stationery can be put with only two folds
- butternut pumpkin — a variety of pumpkin, eaten as vegetable
- by return of post — by the next mail in the opposite direction
- california privet — a privet, Ligustrum ovalifolium, of the olive family, native to Japan, having glossy, oval leaves and long clusters of white flowers, widely used for hedges in the U.S.
- call-and-response — a form of interaction between a speaker and one or more listeners, in which every utterance of the speaker elicits a verbal or non-verbal response from the listener or listeners
- campus university — a university in which the buildings, often including shops and cafés, are all on one site
- canadian pondweed — a North American aquatic plant, Elodea (or Anacharis) canadensis, naturalized in Europe, having crowded dark green leaves: family Hydrocharitaceae. It is used in aquariums
- cancer specialist — a medical professional who specializes in the treatment or study of malignant growths or tumours
- candidate species — any plant or animal species that is a candidate for designation as an endangered species or threatened species.
- canine parvovirus — a highly contagious viral disease of dogs characterized by vomiting, haemorrhagic diarrhoea, depression, and, in severe cases, death
- capacity audience — a situation when the maximum number of people possible are watching an event
- cape barren goose — a greyish Australian goose, Cereopsis novaehollandiae, having a black bill with a greenish cere
- cape horn current — the part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing E at Cape Horn.
- capital allowance — the practice of allowing a certain amount of money spent by a company on fixed assets to be taken off the profits of the company before tax is imposed
- capital equipment — the equipment that a business buys
- capital formation — the net additions to a capital stock in an accounting period
- capital gains tax — a tax on the profit made from the sale of an asset
- capital-intensive — Capital-intensive industries and businesses need the investment of large sums of money. Compare labour-intensive.
- captain's biscuit — a type of hard fancy biscuit
- carbon disulphide — a colourless slightly soluble volatile flammable poisonous liquid commonly having a disagreeable odour due to the presence of impurities: used as an organic solvent and in the manufacture of rayon and carbon tetrachloride. Formula: CS2
- carbon microphone — a microphone in which a diaphragm, vibrated by sound waves, applies a varying pressure to a container packed with carbon granules, altering the resistance of the carbon. A current flowing through the carbon is thus modulated at the frequency of the sound waves
- cardiac tamponade — tamponade (def 2).
- cardiac-tamponade — Medicine/Medical. the use of a tampon, as to stop a hemorrhage.
- carolina allspice — any of a genus (Calycanthus) of hardy shrubs (family Calycanthaceae) of a dicotyledonous order (Laurales) of plants, bearing reddish-brown, sweet-smelling flowers
- carolina parakeet — an extinct New World parakeet, Conuropsis carolinensis, that ranged into the northern U.S., having yellowish-green plumage with an orange-yellow head.
- carrying capacity — the maximum number of individuals that an area of land can support, usually determined by their food requirements