16-letter words containing o, b, s, l
- blow one's cover — to be or serve as a covering for; extend over; rest on the surface of: Snow covered the fields.
- blow one's lines — (of the wind or air) to be in motion.
- blow one's stack — to lose one's temper; fly into a rage
- blow the whistle — to inform (on)
- bluegrass region — a region in central Kentucky, famous for its horse farms and fields of bluegrass.
- boarding kennels — a place where dog owners can pay to have their dogs looked after while they are away
- bob's your uncle — everything is or will turn out all right
- bodily functions — physical processes such as urination and defecation
- bois de boulogne — a large park in W Paris, formerly a forest: includes the racecourses of Auteuil and Longchamp
- bois de rose oil — rosewood oil.
- bonneville flats — an area of salt flats in the W part of Great Salt Lake Desert, in NW Utah: site of automobile speed tests.
- bootstrap loader — (operating system) A short program loaded from non-volatile storage and used to bootstrap a computer. On early computers great efforts were expended on making the bootstrap loader short, in order to make it easy to toggle in via the front panel switches. It was just clever enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from punched cards or paper tape), to which it handed control. This program in turn read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer "pulled itself up by its bootstraps" to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap loader is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the "boot block". When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it. A diskless workstation can use bootp to load its OS from the network.
- bordelaise sauce — a dark sauce made from meat stock, flour, wine, onions, seasonings, etc., served over broiled meat
- border leicester — a breed of sheep originally developed in the border country between Scotland and England by crossing English Leicesters with Cheviots: large numbers in Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand. It has a long white fleece with no wool on the head
- bornholm disease — an epidemic virus infection characterized by pain round the base of the chest
- borosilicic acid — any of several hypothetical acids that form borosilicates.
- boulogne-sur-mer — a port in N France, on the English Channel. Pop: 44 859 (1999)
- bouquet larkspur — a plant, Delphinium grandiflorum, of eastern Asia, having blue or whitish flowers and hairy fruit.
- bowman's capsule — a membranous, double-walled capsule surrounding a glomerulus of a nephron.
- bracknell forest — a unitary authority in SE England, in E Berkshire. Pop: 110 100 (2003 est). Area: 109 sq km (42 sq miles)
- braille embosser — Braille printer
- bring sb to heel — If you bring someone to heel, you force them to obey you.
- bristlecone pine — a coniferous tree, Pinus aristata, of the western US, bearing cones with bristle-like prickles: one of the longest-lived trees, useful in radiocarbon dating
- british columbia — a province of W Canada, on the Pacific coast: largely mountainous with extensive forests, rich mineral resources, and important fisheries. Capital: Victoria. Pop: 4 400 057 (2011 est). Area: 930 532 sq km (359 279 sq miles)
- british longhair — a breed of large cat with a semi-long thick soft coat
- broad-shouldered — having broad shoulders
- bronchial asthma — asthma.
- brothel-creepers — soft-soled men's shoes that were originally popular in the 1950s
- brussels griffon — one of a Belgian breed of toy dogs having a thick, wiry, reddish-brown coat.
- building society — In Britain, a building society is a business which will lend you money when you want to buy a house. You can also invest money in a building society, where it will earn interest. Compare savings and loan association.
- bulletproof vest — a protective garment
- bullock's oriole — a common oriole, Icterus galbula bullockii, of western North America: a subspecies of the northern oriole.
- bundle of nerves — a very nervous person
- bundled software — software sold as part of a package with computers or other hardware or software
- burn oneself out — to undergo rapid combustion or consume fuel in such a way as to give off heat, gases, and, usually, light; be on fire: The fire burned in the grate.
- bush honeysuckle — any of several shrubs of the genus Diervilla, of eastern North America, having clusters of yellowish flowers.
- business college — a college providing courses in secretarial studies, business management, accounting, commerce, etc
- busman's holiday — If you have a holiday, but spend it doing something similar to your usual work, you can refer to it as a busman's holiday.
- butterfly stroke — a swimming stroke in which the arms are plunged forward together in large circular movements
- button one's lip — to stop talking: often imperative
- cable television — Cable television is a television system in which signals are sent along wires rather than by radio waves.
- cannonball serve — (in tennis) a very fast low serve
- capsule wardrobe — a collection of clothes and accessories that includes only items considered essential
- carbon bisulfide — carbon disulfide
- carbon disulfide — a heavy, volatile, colorless liquid, CS2, highly flammable and poisonous, used as a solvent, insecticide, etc.
- carbonless paper — a sheet of paper impregnated with dye which transfers writing or typing onto the copying surface below without the necessity for carbon pigment
- carboxylesterase — (enzyme) Any enzyme that catalyses the hydrolysis of a carboxylic ester.
- chinese snowball — a Chinese shrub, Viburnum macrocephalum, of the honeysuckle family, having scurfy, hairy twigs, hairy leaves, and white flowers in large, showy, globelike clusters.
- class background — a person's background with reference to social class
- clinically obese — overweight to a degree which causes medical complications