21-letter words containing o, l, e
- as luck would have it — fortunately
- asiliant technologies — (company) A company founded by a group of former Chips and Technologies employees with experience with the CHIPS products, suppliers, distributors and customers. Asiliant offer C&T's industry standard Flat Panel and CRT controller family.
- astronomical distance — the distance from one celestial body to another, measured in astronomical units, light-years, or parsecs.
- astronomical latitude — the angle between the direction of gravity at the observer's position and the plane of the celestial equator
- astronomical triangle — the spherical triangle formed by the great circles connecting a celestial object, the zenith, and the celestial pole.
- at a/o's low(est) ebb — If someone or something is at a low ebb or at their lowest ebb, they are not being very successful or profitable.
- athenaeus of attaleia — Greek physician in Rome, fl. a.d. c40–65.
- atomic unit of length — (in the Bohr atom) the radius of the electron orbit having the lowest energy.
- atrioventricular node — a small mass of muscular fibers at the base of the wall between the atria, conducting impulses received from the sinoatrial node by way of the atrioventricular bundles and, under certain conditions, functioning for the sinoatrial node as pacemaker of the heart. Abbreviation: A-V node.
- australian cattle dog — a compact strongly-built dog of a breed with pricked ears and a smooth bluish-grey coat, often used for controlling and moving cattle
- axial-flow compressor — a device for compressing a gas by accelerating it tangentially by means of bladed rotors, to increase its kinetic energy, and then diffusing it through static vanes (stators), to increase its pressure
- baja california norte — a state of NW Mexico, in the N part of the Lower California peninsula. Capital: Mexicali. Pop: 2 487 700 (2000). Area: about 71 500 sq km (27 600 sq miles)
- balance sheet account — A balance sheet account is an account in the chart of accounts that is reported on the balance sheet.
- ball-and-socket joint — a coupling between two rods, tubes, etc, that consists of a spherical part fitting into a spherical socket, allowing free movement within a specific conical volume
- be flat on one's back — the rear part of the human body, extending from the neck to the lower end of the spine.
- be in apple-pie order — If a room or a desk is in apple pie order, it is neat and tidy, and everything is where it should be.
- be in the melting pot — If something is in the melting pot, you do not know what is going to happen to it.
- be on the danger list — to be critically ill in hospital
- behavioural contagion — the spread of a particular type of behaviour, such as crying, through a crowd or group of people
- benzalkonium chloride — a white or yellowish-white, water-soluble mixture of ammonium chloride derivatives having the structure C 8 H 10 NRCl, where R is a mixture of radicals ranging from C 8 H 17 – to C 18 H 37 –, that occurs as an amorphous powder or in gelatinous lumps: used chiefly as an antiseptic and a disinfectant.
- benzethonium chloride — a colorless, water-soluble, crystalline solid, ammonium chloride derivative, (C 27 H 42 O 2 N)Cl⋅H 2 O, used chiefly as an antiseptic.
- bernadette of lourdes — Saint. original name Marie Bernarde Soubirous. 1844–79, French peasant girl born in Lourdes, whose visions of the Virgin Mary led to the establishment of Lourdes as a centre of pilgrimage, esp for the sick or crippled. Feast day: Feb 18
- bernoulli's principle — the principle that in a liquid flowing through a pipe the pressure difference that accelerates the flow when the bore changes is equal to the product of half the density times the change of the square of the speed, provided friction is negligible
- beyond (all) question — beyond (any) dispute or doubt
- bichloride of mercury — mercuric chloride
- binomial nomenclature — a system for naming plants and animals by means of two Latin names: the first indicating the genus and the second the species to which the organism belongs, as in Panthera leo (the lion)
- biobehavioral science — any of the various branches of the life sciences, as neurobiology, neurochemistry, or neuroendocrinology, that deal with biological aspects of behavior.
- black-headed fireworm — the larva of any of several moths, as Rhopobota naevana (black-headed fireworm) which feeds on the leaves of cranberries and causes them to wither.
- blot on the landscape — If you describe something such as a building as a blot on the landscape, you mean that you think it is very ugly and spoils an otherwise attractive place.
- blow one's brains out — to kill oneself by shooting oneself in the head
- blow the whistle (on) — to report or inform (on)
- blow your own trumpet — If you blow your own trumpet or blow your own horn, you tell people that you are very clever or successful.
- bluethroat pikeblenny — See under pikeblenny.
- boiling-water reactor — a nuclear reactor using water as coolant and moderator, steam being produced in the reactor itself: enriched uranium oxide cased in zirconium is the fuel
- bonnie prince charlie — a member of the royal family that ruled in Scotland from 1371 to 1714 and in England from 1603 to 1714.
- bottlebrush moustache — a short, bristly moustache
- bow to the inevitable — If someone bows to the inevitable and does something that they do not want to do, they do it, because circumstances force them to do it.
- break the fourth wall — (esp of a character in a television programme, film, or play) to refer to, acknowledge, or address the audience, usually for comedic effect or as an avante-garde technique
- breakthrough bleeding — bleeding from the uterus that occurs between menstrual periods
- breath-of-life packet — (XEROX PARC) An Ethernet packet that contains bootstrap code, periodically sent out from a working computer to infuse the "breath of life" into any computer on the network that has crashed. Computers depending on such packets have sufficient hardware or firmware code to wait for (or request) such a packet during the reboot process. See also dickless workstation. The notional "kiss-of-death packet", with a function complementary to that of a breath-of-life packet, is recommended for dealing with hosts that consume too many network resources. Though "kiss-of-death packet" is usually used in jest, there is at least one documented instance of an Internet subnet with limited address-table slots in a gateway computer in which such packets were routinely used to compete for slots, rather like Christmas shoppers competing for scarce parking spaces.
- broadleaved whitebeam — a whitebeam, Sorbus latifolia, widely found in France and England, also planted as an ornamental
- bromine pentafluoride — a colorless, corrosive liquid, BrF 5 , used as an oxidizer in liquid rocket propellants.
- buffalo carpet beetle — any of several small beetles of the family Dermestidae, the larvae of which are household pests, feeding on rugs and other woolen fabrics, especially Anthrenus scrophulariae (buffalo carpet beetle) and Attagenus piceus (black carpet beetle)
- built-in obsolescence — a method of stimulating consumer demand by designing products that wear out or become outmoded after limited use.
- bulletin board system — (communications, application) (BBS, bboard /bee'bord/, message board, forum; plural: BBSes) A computer and associated software which typically provides an electronic message database where people can log in and leave messages. Messages are typically split into topic groups similar to the newsgroups on Usenet (which is like a distributed BBS). Any user may submit or read any message in these public areas. The term comes from physical pieces of board on which people can pin messages written on paper for general consumption - a "physical bulletin board". Ward Christensen, the programmer and operator of the first BBS (on-line 1978-02-16) called it a CBBS for "computer bulletin board system". Since the rise of the World-Wide Web, the term has become antiquated, though the concept is more popular than ever, with many websites featuring discussion areas where users can post messages for public consumption. Apart from public message areas, some BBSes provided archives of files, personal electronic mail and other services of interest to the system operator (sysop). Thousands of BBSes around the world were run from amateurs' homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line each. Although BBSes were traditionally the domain of hobbyists, many connected directly to the Internet (accessed via telnet), others were operated by government, educational, and research institutions. Fans of Usenet or the big commercial time-sharing bboards such as CompuServe, CIX and GEnie tended to consider local BBSes the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they helped connect hackers and users in the personal-micro and let them exchange code. Use of this term for a Usenet newsgroup generally marks one either as a newbie fresh in from the BBS world or as a real old-timer predating Usenet.
- burn the midnight oil — to work or study late into the night
- businessman's holiday — busman's holiday.
- butterfly common lisp — A parallel version of Common LISP for the BBN Butterfly computer.
- button up (one's lip) — to refrain from talking; esp., to keep a secret
- by fair means or foul — If someone tries to achieve something by fair means or foul, they use every means possible in order to achieve it, and they do not care if their behaviour is dishonest or unfair.