18-letter words containing n, t
- back in the saddle — at work again
- back to square one — If you are back to square one, you have to start dealing with something from the beginning again because the way you were dealing with it has failed.
- back/down to earth — If you come down to earth or back to earth, you have to face the reality of everyday life after a period of great excitement.
- balance an account — If you balance an account, you adjust entries in the account in order to make the credit and debit totals equal.
- balanced computing — (jargon) Matching computer tools to job activities so that the computer system structure parallels the organisation structure and work functions. Both personal computers and employees operate in a decentralised environment with monitoring of achievement of management objectives from centralised corporate systems.
- ball-and-claw foot — a foot having the form of a bird's claw grasping a ball.
- ballistic pendulum — a device consisting of a large mass hung from a horizontal bar by two rods, used to measure the velocity of an object, as a bullet, by retaining the object upon impact, its velocity being a function of the displacement of the mass.
- band-tailed pigeon — a wild pigeon, Columba fasciata, of western North America, having a gray band on its tail.
- banded rattlesnake — timber rattlesnake.
- bankers-acceptance — a draft or bill of exchange that a bank has accepted. Abbreviation: BA. Also called banker's acceptance. Compare acceptance (def 6).
- bargaining counter — A bargaining counter is the same as a bargaining chip.
- baritone saxophone — the second lowest instrument in the family of saxophones
- bartholin's glands — two small reddish-yellow glands, one on each side of the vaginal orifice, that secrete a mucous lubricating substance during sexual stimulation in females
- basal conglomerate — a conglomerate deposited on an erosion surface and constituting the bottom layer of a stratigraphic series.
- basement apartment — an apartment below the ground floor of a building
- basket-handle arch — an arch having a symmetrical form drawn from an odd number of radii in excess of one, which increase in length from the springing toward the center.
- bats-in-the-belfry — a hairy Eurasian campanulaceous plant, Campanula trachelium, with bell-shaped blue-purple flowers
- battery eliminator — eliminator (def 2).
- battery-eliminator — a person or thing that eliminates.
- battle of clontarf — a battle fought in 1014, near Dublin, in the Republic of Ireland, in which the Danes were defeated by the Irish but the Irish king, Brian Boru, was killed
- battle of omdurman — a battle (1898) in which the Mahdi's successor and his Ansar followers were defeated by Lord Kitchener's British forces
- battleground-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.
- be getting nowhere — If you say that you are getting nowhere, or getting nowhere fast, or that something is getting you nowhere, you mean that you are not achieving anything or having any success.
- be having a moment — If something or someone is having a moment, they are successful or popular at the present time.
- be lost in thought — If you are lost in thought, you give all your attention to what you are thinking about and do not notice what is going on around you.
- be lost on someone — If advice or a comment is lost on someone, they do not understand it or they pay no attention to it.
- beauty competition — a competition in which the participants, usually women, are judged on their attractiveness, with a prize, and often a title, awarded to the winner
- bedlington terrier — a lithe, graceful breed of terrier having a long tapering head with no stop and a thick fleecy coat
- before the present — See B.P (def 4).
- before you know it — rapidly, soon
- behaviour patterns — the characteristic ways in which a person or animal acts
- bel and the dragon — a book of the Apocrypha that is included as chapter 14 of Daniel in the Douay Bible.
- bells and whistles — additional features or accessories which are nonessential but very attractive
- benchmark position — a public service job used for comparison with a similar position, such as a position in commerce, for wage settlements
- benzyl thiocyanate — a colorless, crystalline, water-insoluble solid, C 8 H 7 NS, used as an insecticide.
- bernard montgomery — Bernard Law, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein ("Monty") 1887–1976, British field marshal: World War II commander of British 8th Army in Africa and Europe.
- bernard of menthon — Saint(11th cent.); Fr. monk who founded hospices in the Swiss Alps: his day is May 28
- bernoulli equation — Hydrodynamics. Bernoulli's theorem (def 2).
- berwick-upon-tweed — a town in N England, in N Northumberland at the mouth of the Tweed: much involved in border disputes between England and Scotland between the 12th and 16th centuries; neutral territory 1551–1885. Pop: 12 870 (2001)
- bessemer converter — a refractory-lined furnace used to convert pig iron into steel by the Bessemer process
- beta-naphthylamine — a white to reddish, crystalline, water-soluble, extremely toxic solid, C 10 H 9 N, used chiefly in the manufacture of azo dyes.
- between you and me — in the space separating (two points, objects, etc.): between New York and Chicago.
- beyond one's depth — in water deeper than one is tall
- bill of indictment — a formal document accusing a person or persons of crime, formerly presented to a grand jury for certification as a true bill but now signed by a court official
- bill of quantities — a document drawn up by a quantity surveyor providing details of the prices, dimensions, etc, of the materials required to build a large structure, such as a factory
- biodiversification — the process by which the diversity of plants or animals develops or is increased within a particular region or group of organisms.
- bioinstrumentation — the use of instruments, as sensors, to detect and measure certain body functions, as of persons in spaceflight, and transmit the data to a point where it is evaluated
- biological control — the control of destructive organisms by the use of other organisms, such as the natural predators of the pests
- biological parents — the biological mother and father of a child
- bipolar transistor — (electronics) A transistor made from a sandwich of n- and p-type semiconductor material: either npn or pnp. The middle section is known as the "base" and the other two as the "collector" and "emitter". When used as an amplifying element, the base to emitter junction is in a "forward-biased" (conducting) condition, and the base to collector junction is "reverse-biased" or non-conducting. Small changes in the base to emitter current (the input signal) cause either holes (for pnp devices) or free electrons (for npn) to enter the base from the emitter. The attracting voltage of the collector causes the majority of these charges to cross into and be collected by the collector, resulting in amplification. Contrast field effect transistor.