18-letter words containing o, c
- bessemer converter — a refractory-lined furnace used to convert pig iron into steel by the Bessemer process
- betsy griscom ross — Betsy Griscom [gris-kuh m] /ˈgrɪs kəm/ (Show IPA), 1752–1836, maker of the first U.S. flag.
- bichromate process — any of several methods of photography in which the light-sensitive medium is alkaline bichromate associated with a colloid such as gum, albumen, or gelatin.
- bill of indictment — a formal document accusing a person or persons of crime, formerly presented to a grand jury for certification as a true bill but now signed by a court official
- biodiversification — the process by which the diversity of plants or animals develops or is increased within a particular region or group of organisms.
- biological control — the control of destructive organisms by the use of other organisms, such as the natural predators of the pests
- biological parents — the biological mother and father of a child
- biological therapy — biotherapy
- biological warfare — the use of living organisms or their toxic products to induce death or incapacity in humans and animals and damage to plant crops, etc
- biomedical package — (language, library, statistics) (BMDP) A statistical language and library of over forty statistical routines developed in 1961 at UCLA, Health Sciences Computing Facility under Dr. Wilford Dixon. BMDP was first implemented in Fortran for the IBM 7090. Tapes of the original source were distributed for free all over the world. BMDP is the second iteration of the original BIMED programs. It was developed at UCLA Health Sciences Computing facility, with NIH funding. The "P" in BMDP originally stood for "parameter" but was later changed to "package". BMDP used keyword parameters to defined what was to be done rather than the fixed card format used by original BIMED programs. BMDP supports many statistical funtions: simple data description, survival analysis, ANOVA, multivariate analyses, regression analysis, and time series analysis. BMDP Professional combines the full suite of BMDP Classic (Dynamic) release 7.0 with the BMDP New System 2.0 Windows front-end.
- bird's-nest orchid — a brown parasitic Eurasian orchid, Neottia nidus-avis, whose thick fleshy roots resemble a bird's nest and contain a fungus on which the orchid feeds
- birth control pill — an oral contraceptive for women, containing the hormones estrogen and progesterone or progesterone alone, that inhibits ovulation, fertilization, or implantation of a fertilized ovum, causing temporary infertility.
- birth-control pill — an oral contraceptive for women, containing the hormones estrogen and progesterone or progesterone alone, that inhibits ovulation, fertilization, or implantation of a fertilized ovum, causing temporary infertility.
- bitwise complement — The bitwise complement of a bit field is a bit field of the same length but with each zero changed to a one and vice versa. This is the same as the ones complement of a binary integer.
- biz-core stability — (security) Internet security products which secure the business core.
- black nickel oxide — a gray-black, water-insoluble powder, Ni 2 O 3 , which, at 600°C, decomposes to nickel oxide: used chiefly in storage batteries as an oxidizing agent.
- black-necked stork — a large Australian stork, Xenorhyncus asiaticus, having a white plumage, dark green back and tail, and red legs
- blackback flounder — any of various popular food flatfishes, as Parophrys vetulus of the Pacific (English sole) and Pseudopleuronectes americanus of the Atlantic (winter flounder or blackback flounder)
- blanche of castile — ?1188–1252, queen consort (1223–26) of Louis VIII of France, born in Spain. The mother of Louis IX, she acted as regent during his minority (1226–36) and his absence on a crusade (1248–52)
- blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
- blocking capacitor — a capacitor that blocks the passage of direct current but allows alternating current to pass
- blot sb's copybook — If you blot your copybook, you spoil your good reputation by doing something wrong.
- blue-collar worker — a manual industrial worker
- board of directors — A company's board of directors is the group of people elected by its shareholders to manage the company.
- board of education — a group or agency with responsibility for education
- board of elections — a bipartisan board appointed usually by local authorities and charged with control of elections and voting procedure.
- boltzmann constant — the ratio of the gas constant to the Avogadro constant, equal to 1.380 650 × 10–23 joule per kelvin
- bone of contention — If a particular matter or issue is a bone of contention, it is the subject of a disagreement or argument.
- borosilicate glass — any of a range of heat- and chemical-resistant glasses, such as Pyrex, prepared by fusing together boron(III) oxide, silicon dioxide, and, usually, a metal oxide
- bottom dead center — Bottom dead center is the point at which the piston of an engine is nearest to the axis of the crankshaft. On a vertical engine, this is the lowest point that the piston reaches.
- bottom dead centre — the position of the crank of a reciprocating engine when the piston is at its nearest point to the crankshaft
- boundary condition — a stated restriction, usually in the form of an equation, that limits the possible solutions to a differential equation.
- boundedly complete — (theory) (Or "consistently complete") In domain theory, a complete partial order is boundedly complete if every bounded subset has a least upper bound.
- box-office success — a very successful film or play that earns a lot of money
- branch instruction — a machine-language or assembly-language instruction that causes the computer to branch to another instruction
- branch to fishkill — (IBM: from the location of one of the corporation's facilities) Any unexpected jump in a program that produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See jump off into never-never land, hyperspace.
- branching fraction — (in branching) the proportion of the disintegrating nuclei that follow a particular branch to the total number of disintegrating nuclides
- brand-name product — A brand-name product is one which is made by a well-known manufacturer and has the manufacturer's label on it.
- breach of contract — the act of breaking the conditions of a contract
- breach of security — an act that violates a country, area, or building's security measures
- break your silence — If someone breaks their silence about something, they talk about something that they have not talked about before or for a long time.
- brightness control — a control that enables the brightness of the image on a television screen, computer monitor, etc to be adjusted
- bring someone luck — If you say that something brings bad luck or brings someone good luck, you believe that it has an influence on whether good or bad things happen to them.
- broadcasting house — any of a number of buildings in the UK from which the BBC broadcasts or has broadcast
- bromochloromethane — chlorobromomethane.
- bronchocandidiasis — See under candidiasis.
- brute force attack — (cryptography) A method of breaking a cipher (that is, to decrypt a specific encrypted text) by trying every possible key. The quicker the brute force attack, the weaker the cipher. Feasibility of brute force attack depends on the key length of the cipher, and on the amount of computational power available to the attacker. Brute force attack is impossible against the ciphers with variable-size key, such as a one-time pad cipher.
- bullnose stretcher — bull stretcher (def 1).
- bullnose-stretcher — Also called bullnose stretcher. a brick having one of the edges along its length rounded for laying as a stretcher in a sill or the like.
- burrell collection — a gallery in Glasgow, noted for its collection of paintings, textiles, furniture, ceramics, etc