16-letter words containing o, b, s, t, a
- boatswain's pipe — a whistle used formerly to give orders on board ship
- 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.
- bootstrap memory — memory that allows new programs to be entered because some simple preliminary instructions or information are already built in.
- boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
- boston tea party — a raid in 1773 made by citizens of Boston (disguised as Indians) on three British ships in the harbour as a protest against taxes on tea and the monopoly given to the East India Company. The contents of several hundred chests of tea were dumped into the harbour
- boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
- 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)
- branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
- break one's fast — to eat food for the first time after fasting, or for the first time in the day
- 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 honduras — Belize
- british longhair — a breed of large cat with a semi-long thick soft coat
- bronchial asthma — asthma.
- brood parasitism — a type of parasitism in which a bird (brood parasite), as a cowbird or European cuckoo, lays and abandons its eggs in the nest of another species
- bundled software — software sold as part of a package with computers or other hardware or software
- business account — a bank account or type of bank account used for business transactions rather than personal ones
- button snakeroot — blazing star (sense 1)
- bypass capacitor — a capacitor which provides a low-impedance path for alternating current while not passing any direct current
- bypass operation — an operation involving redirection of blood flow, either to avoid a diseased blood vessel or in order to perform heart surgery
- cable television — Cable television is a television system in which signals are sent along wires rather than by radio waves.
- carboxylesterase — (enzyme) Any enzyme that catalyses the hydrolysis of a carboxylic ester.
- carboxypeptidase — any of several digestive enzymes that catalyze the removal of an amino acid from the end of a peptide chain having a free carbonyl group.
- close by/at hand — Something that is close by or close at hand is near to you.
- collaborationism — The act of collaborating, especially with an enemy.
- collaborationist — A collaborationist government or individual is one that helps or gives support to the enemy during the war.
- columbia heights — a city in SE Minnesota, near Minneapolis.
- combination last — a shoe last that has a narrower heel or instep than the standard last.
- combination shot — a shot in pool in which the cue ball strikes at least one object ball before contact is made with the ball to be pocketed.
- combination skin — facial skin that is dry in some areas and greasy in others
- commensurability — The quality of being commensurable or commensurate.
- constant lambert — Constant [kon-stuh nt] /ˈkɒn stənt/ (Show IPA), 1905–51, English composer and conductor.
- constructability — Alternative form of constructibility.
- consubstantiated — Simple past tense and past participle of consubstantiate.
- contrabassoonist — Someone who plays the contrabassoon.
- controllableness — The state of being controllable; the capability of being controlled.
- conversion table — a diagram which shows equivalent amounts in different measuring systems
- cute as a button — very sweet, adorable
- cytotrophoblasts — Plural form of cytotrophoblast.
- data abstraction — (data) Any representation of data in which the implementation details are hidden (abstracted). Abstract data types and objects are the two primary forms of data abstraction.
- dearborn heights — city in SE Mich.: suburb of Detroit: pop. 58,000
- debating society — a club, e.g. at a school or university, which regularly holds debates
- deboursification — (jargon) Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: sneck.
- dehydroascorbate — (organic compound) Any salt or ester of dehydroascorbic acid.
- demonstrableness — The quality of being demonstrable.
- desktop database — Macintosh file system
- destabilizations — Plural form of destabilization.
- discombobulating — Present participle of discombobulate.
- discombobulation — to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate: The speaker was completely discombobulated by the hecklers.