17-letter words containing o, b, e, y
- downwardly-mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
- drive-by download — an incidence of an unwanted program being automatically downloaded to a computer, often without the user's knowledge
- drive-by shooting — an incident in which a person, building, or vehicle is shot at by someone in a moving vehicle
- electricity board — a company which supplies electricity
- embroidery thread — a thread used for embroidery
- employee benefits — benefits, such as health insurance, pension payments, or childcare, given to employees in addition to their usual salary or wage
- eyelet embroidery — a piece of embroidery decorated with such work
- four-rowed barley — a class of barley having, in each spike, six rows of grain, with two pairs of rows overlapping.
- free-body diagram — A free-body diagram is a diagram of a structure in which all supports are replaced by forces.
- globus hystericus — the sensation of having a lump in the throat or difficulty in swallowing for which no medical cause can be found.
- go by the wayside — to be put aside on account of something more urgent
- haemoglobinopathy — (medicine) Any of a group of inherited disorders in which haemoglobin does not function properly.
- have it both ways — to try to get the best of a situation, argument, etc, by chopping and changing between alternatives or opposites
- henry cabot lodge — Henry Cabot, 1850–1924, U.S. public servant and author: senator 1893–1924.
- house of assembly — the legislature or the lower house of the legislature in certain countries of the Commonwealth of Nations.
- hybrid fiber coax — (networking) (HFC) A kind of physical connection used in networks for audio, video, and data. DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) is used in Europe and DOCSIS is used in N America.
- hyperbolic cosine — one of a group of functions of an angle expressed as a relationship between the distances of a point on a hyperbola to the origin and to the coordinate axes; cosh
- hyperbolic secant — a hyperbolic function that is the reciprocal of cosh; sech
- hyperbolic spiral — rθ = a, (where a is a constant)
- i beg your pardon — You say 'Pardon?' or 'I beg your pardon?' or, in American English, 'Pardon me?' when you want someone to repeat what they have just said because you have not heard or understood it.
- impressionability — easily impressed or influenced; susceptible: an impressionable youngster.
- incompressibility — The quality of being incompressible, of not compressing under pressure.
- interlibrary loan — a system by which one library obtains a work for a user by borrowing it from another library.
- inverted snobbery — the attitude of an inverted snob
- irreconcilability — incapable of being brought into harmony or adjustment; incompatible: irreconcilable differences.
- irreproducibility — The quality of not being reproducible.
- joachim du bellay — Joachim [French zhaw-a-keem] /French ʒɔ aˈkim/ (Show IPA), Bellay, Joachim du.
- jobs for the boys — If you refer to work as jobs for the boys, you mean that the work is unfairly given to someone's friends, supporters, or relations, even though they may not be the best qualified people to do it.
- keep your balance — If you keep your balance, for example when standing in a moving vehicle, you remain steady and do not fall over. If you lose your balance, you become unsteady and fall over.
- keyboard commando — (messaging) A bulletin board user who posts authoritatively on military or combat topics, but who has never served in uniform or heard a shot fired in anger. A poseur.
- know only by name — to be familiar with the name of but not know personally
- liberal democracy — a democracy based on the recognition of individual rights and freedoms, in which decisions from direct or representative processes prevail in many policy areas
- liberty of speech — freedom of speech.
- lowbush blueberry — a shrub, Vaccinium angustifolium, of eastern North America, having small, white flowers and blue-black fruit.
- management buyout — A management buyout is the buying of a company by its managers. The abbreviation MBO is also used.
- membrane recovery — Membrane recovery is a process which uses membranes to obtain hydrogen from refinery fuel gas, hydrocrackers, and chemical processes such as methanol production.
- mercury barometer — a barometer in which the weight of a column of mercury in a glass tube with a sealed top is balanced against that of the atmosphere pressing on an exposed cistern of mercury at the base of the mercury column, the height of the column varying with atmospheric pressure.
- metabolic pathway — biochemistry: sequence of reactions within a cell or organism
- methyltheobromine — caffeine.
- mind-body problem — the problem of explaining the relation of the mind to the body.
- molecular biology — the branch of biology that deals with the nature of biological phenomena at the molecular level through the study of DNA and RNA, proteins, and other macromolecules involved in genetic information and cell function, characteristically making use of advanced tools and techniques of separation, manipulation, imaging, and analysis.
- monarch butterfly — a large, deep-orange butterfly, Danaus plexippus, having black and white markings, the larvae of which feed on the leaves of milkweed.
- monkey bread tree — a bombacaceous tree, Adansonia digitata, native to Africa, that has a very thick trunk, large white flowers, and a gourdlike fruit with an edible pulp called monkey bread
- movable-do system — a system of solmization in which the syllable do can be transposed to the tonic of any key.
- national assembly — the body constituted by the French Third Estate in June 1789 after the calling of the Estates General. It was dissolved in Sept 1791 to be replaced by the new Legislative Assembly
- naval observatory — an astronomical observatory located in Washington, D.C., operated by the U.S. government, and responsible for the U.S. time service.
- neurobiologically — In terms of or by means of neurobiology.
- nonsense syllable — any of numerous letter combinations without meaning, used in learning experiments.
- northeast by east — a point on the compass 11°15′ east of northeast. Abbreviation: NEbE.
- northwest by west — a point on the compass, 11°15′ west of northwest. Abbreviation: NWbW.