17-letter words containing n, u, r, b
- recumbent bicycle — a type of bicycle that is ridden in a reclining position
- redistributionist — a person who believes in, advocates, or supports income redistribution.
- reflection nebula — a cloud of interstellar gas and dust that reflects the light of neighboring stars.
- republic of china — People's Republic of, a country in E Asia. 3,691,502 sq. mi. (9,560,990 sq. km). Capital: Beijing.
- republic of yemen — Republic of, a country in S Arabia, formed in 1990 by the merger of the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. 207,000 sq. mi. (536,130 sq. km). Capital: Aden.
- republic-of-china — People's Republic of, a country in E Asia. 3,691,502 sq. mi. (9,560,990 sq. km). Capital: Beijing.
- ribonucleoprotein — a substance composed of RNA in close association with protein; a nucleoprotein containing RNA. Abbreviation: RNP.
- rub the wrong way — to subject the surface of (a thing or person) to pressure and friction, as in cleaning, smoothing, polishing, coating, massaging, or soothing: to rub a table top with wax polish; to rub the entire back area.
- rubber plantation — an estate in a tropical country where rubber trees are grown on a large scale
- rubber-base paint — latex paint.
- rubberman disease — Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
- russell, bertrand — Bertrand Russell
- safety in numbers — If you say that there is safety in numbers, you mean that you are safer doing something if there are a lot of people doing it rather than doing it alone.
- saint bonaventure — Saint ("the Seraphic Doctor") 1221–74, Italian scholastic theologian.
- square and rabbet — annulet (def 1).
- squash vine borer — the larva of a clearwing moth, Melittia satyriniformis, that bores into the stems of squash and related plants.
- subclavian artery — either of a pair of arteries, one on each side of the body, that carry the main supply of blood to the arms.
- subclavian groove — either of two grooves in the first rib, one for the main artery (subclavian artery) and the other for the main vein (subclavian vein) of the arm
- subordinated debt — a debt that an unsecured creditor can only claim, in the event of a liquidation, after the claims of secured creditors have been paid
- subscription rate — the price charged for a subscription
- substantive right — a right, as life, liberty, or property, recognized for its own sake and as part of the natural legal order of society.
- sunbury-on-thames — a town in SE England, in N Surrey. Pop: 27 415 (2001)
- sunday observance — the fact of keeping Sunday as a special day when people go to church
- surrender to bail — to present oneself at court at the appointed time after having been on bail
- suspension bridge — a bridge having a deck suspended from cables anchored at their extremities and usually raised on towers.
- synchronous orbit — an orbit in which the orbital period of a satellite is identical to the spin period of the central body
- tanenbaum, andrew — Andrew Tanenbaum
- teething troubles — Teething troubles are the same as teething problems.
- telephone numbers — extremely large numbers, esp in reference to salaries or prices
- temporomandibular — of, relating to, or situated near the hinge joint formed by the lower jaw and the temporal bone of the skull.
- the black country — the formerly heavily industrialized region of central England, northwest of Birmingham
- the carboniferous — the Carboniferous period or rock system
- theory of numbers — number theory.
- third-degree burn — a burned place or area: a burn where fire had ripped through the forest.
- to knit your brow — If you knit your brows or knit your eyebrows, you frown because you are angry or worried.
- torricellian tube — a vertical glass tube partly evacuated and partly filled with mercury, the height of which is used as a measure of atmospheric pressure
- triboluminescence — luminescence produced by friction, usually within a crystalline substance.
- tuberculin-tested — (of milk) produced by cows that have been certified as free of tuberculosis
- turbidity current — a turbid, dense current of sediments in suspension moving along the slope and bottom of a lake or ocean.
- turbinado (sugar) — a partially refined, granulated, pale-brown sugar obtained by washing raw sugar in a centrifuge until most of the molasses is removed
- ultramicrobalance — a balance for weighing precisely, to a hundredth of a microgram or less, minute quantities of material.
- uncircumscribable — to draw a line around; encircle: to circumscribe a city on a map.
- uncomfortableness — causing discomfort or distress; painful; irritating.
- understandability — capable of being understood; comprehensible.
- universal algebra — (logic) The model theory of first-order equational logic.
- unix brain damage — Something that has to be done to break a network program (typically a mailer) on a non-Unix system so that it will interoperate with Unix systems. The hack may qualify as "Unix brain damage" if the program conforms to published standards and the Unix program in question does not. Unix brain damage happens because it is much easier for other (minority) systems to change their ways to match non-conforming behaviour than it is to change all the hundreds of thousands of Unix systems out there. An example of Unix brain damage is a kluge in a mail server to recognise bare line feed (the Unix newline) as an equivalent form to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return followed by a line feed. Such things can make even a hardened jock weep.
- unpredictableness — not predictable; not to be foreseen or foretold: an unpredictable occurrence.
- unreconstructible — not capable of being reconstructed.
- urban development — the development or improvement of an urban area by building
- urban exploration — a recreational activity in which people explore derelict urban structures such as abandoned sewers or underground railways or attempt to access areas which are closed to the public such as the roofs of skyscrapers