16-letter words containing o, a, k
- bouquet larkspur — a plant, Delphinium grandiflorum, of eastern Asia, having blue or whitish flowers and hairy fruit.
- bracknell forest — a unitary authority in SE England, in E Berkshire. Pop: 110 100 (2003 est). Area: 109 sq km (42 sq miles)
- brake horsepower — the rate at which an engine does work, expressed in horsepower. It is measured by the resistance of an applied brake
- break new ground — to do something that has not been done before
- break one's back — to overwork or work very hard
- break one's fast — to eat food for the first time after fasting, or for the first time in the day
- break one's neck — to exert oneself greatly, esp by hurrying, in order to do something
- break one's word — to fail to keep one's promise
- break the record — surpass previous highest, best
- break-even point — When a company reaches break-even point, the money it makes from the sale of goods or services is just enough to cover the cost of supplying those goods or services, but not enough to make a profit.
- brick-and-mortar — pertaining to conventional stores, businesses, etc., having physical buildings and facilities, as opposed to Internet or remote services.
- buckthorn family — the plant family Rhamnaceae, characterized by shrubs and trees having alternate, simple leaves, clusters of small flowers, and fruit in the form of a drupe or capsule, and including the buckthorn, cascara, and New Jersey tea.
- burkitt lymphoma — a rare type of tumour of the white blood cells, occurring mainly in Africa and associated with infection by Epstein-Barr virus
- button snakeroot — blazing star (sense 1)
- cache on a stick — (architecture) (COAST) Intel Corporation attempt to's standardise the modular L2 cache subsystem in Pentium-based computers. A COAST module should be about 4.35" wide by 1.14" high. According to earlier specifications from Motorola, a module between 4.33" and 4.36" wide, and between 1.12" and 1.16" high is within the COAST standard. Some module vendors, including some major motherboard suppliers, greatly violate the height specification. Another COAST specification violated by many suppliers concerns clock distribution in synchronous modules. The specification requires that the clock tree to each synchronous chip be balanced, i.e. equal length from edge of the connector to individual chips. An unbalanced clock tree increases reflections and noise. For a 256 kilobyte cache module the standard requires the same clock be used for both chips but some vendors use separate clocks to reduce loading on the clock driver and hence increase the clock speed. However, this creates unbalanced loading in other motherboard configurations, such as motherboards with soldered caches in the system.
- canadian hemlock — eastern hemlock.
- cantankerousness — disagreeable to deal with; contentious; peevish: a cantankerous, argumentative man.
- capacity booking — a time when someone has booked the whole of a venue or the maximum amount of something available
- carnal knowledge — Chiefly Law. sexual intercourse.
- carpatho-ukraine — a region in W Ukraine: ceded by Czechoslovakia in 1945.
- carrot and stick — If an organization has a carrot and stick approach or policy, they offer people things in order to persuade them to do something and punish them if they refuse to do it.
- category mistake — a sentence that says of something in one category what can only intelligibly be said of something in another, as when speaking of the mind located in space
- checking account — A checking account is a personal bank account which you can take money out of at any time using your cheque book or cash card.
- chernobyl packet — (networking) /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ A network packet that induces a broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, named in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and destination Ethernet address and IP address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare Christmas tree packet.
- chiang ching-kuo — 1910–88, Chinese statesman; the son of Chiang Kai-shek. He was prime minister of Taiwan (1971–78); president (1978–88)
- chiclet keyboard — (hardware, abuse) A keyboard with a small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like pieces of Chiclets chewing gum. Used especially to describe the original IBM PCjr keyboard. Vendors unanimously liked these because they were cheap, and a lot of early portable and laptop computers were launched with them. Customers rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and chiclets are not often seen on anything larger than a digital watch any more.
- childcare worker — someone who takes care of children in return for money
- class background — a person's background with reference to social class
- cloak-and-dagger — A cloak-and-dagger activity is one which involves mystery and secrecy.
- cloak-and-suiter — a manufacturer or seller of clothing.
- cloakroom ticket — a ticket given to someone who checks a coat or other personal item into a cloakroom and which is used to redeem that item at a later period
- cock of the walk — a person who asserts himself or herself in a strutting pompous way
- cocktail cabinet — a cupboard in which glasses and bottles are kept
- cocktail sausage — a small sausage served with drinks
- combination lock — A combination lock is a lock which can only be opened by turning a dial or a number of dials according to a particular series of letters or numbers.
- combination skin — facial skin that is dry in some areas and greasy in others
- commercial break — A commercial break is the interval during a commercial television programme, or between programmes, during which advertisements are shown.
- commonplace book — a notebook in which quotations, poems, remarks, etc, that catch the owner's attention are entered
- concatenated key — compound key
- contract killing — a murder carried out in fulfilment of a contract
- control freakery — an obsessive need to be in control of what is happening
- cooperative bank — a cooperative savings institution, chartered and regulated by a state or the federal government, that receives deposits in exchange for shares of ownership and invests its funds chiefly in loans secured by first mortgages on homes.
- cornhusker state — Nebraska (used as a nickname).
- counterattacking — Present participle of counterattack.
- cracked fraction — A cracked fraction is a petroleum fraction (= a portion separated according to a physical property) that has been broken down from a fraction with larger molecules.
- cracked up to be — alleged or believed to be
- dakin's solution — a dilute solution containing sodium hypochlorite and boric acid, used as an antiseptic in the treatment of wounds
- dakota territory — a territory in the N central U.S., from 1861 to 1868 comprising present-day North Dakota and South Dakota, and parts of Montana and Wyoming.
- dark of the moon — the period during which the moon is not visible.
- day of reckoning — If someone talks about the day of reckoning, they mean a day or time in the future when people will be forced to deal with an unpleasant situation which they have avoided until now.