18-letter words containing o, n, a
- beggar-my-neighbor — beggar-your-neighbor.
- behavioral science — any of several studies, as sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc., that examine human activities in an attempt to discover recurrent patterns and to formulate rules about social behavior
- behaviour patterns — the characteristic ways in which a person or animal acts
- bel and the dragon — a book of the Apocrypha that is included as chapter 14 of Daniel in the Douay Bible.
- benchmark position — a public service job used for comparison with a similar position, such as a position in commerce, for wage settlements
- bend over backward — to try to an unusual degree (to please, pacify, etc.)
- bend someone's ear — to speak at length to an unwilling listener, esp to voice one's troubles
- benzyl thiocyanate — a colorless, crystalline, water-insoluble solid, C 8 H 7 NS, used as an insecticide.
- bernard montgomery — Bernard Law, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein ("Monty") 1887–1976, British field marshal: World War II commander of British 8th Army in Africa and Europe.
- bernard of menthon — Saint(11th cent.); Fr. monk who founded hospices in the Swiss Alps: his day is May 28
- bernoulli equation — Hydrodynamics. Bernoulli's theorem (def 2).
- between you and me — in the space separating (two points, objects, etc.): between New York and Chicago.
- bill of quantities — a document drawn up by a quantity surveyor providing details of the prices, dimensions, etc, of the materials required to build a large structure, such as a factory
- biodiversification — the process by which the diversity of plants or animals develops or is increased within a particular region or group of organisms.
- bioinstrumentation — the use of instruments, as sensors, to detect and measure certain body functions, as of persons in spaceflight, and transmit the data to a point where it is evaluated
- 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
- bipolar transistor — (electronics) A transistor made from a sandwich of n- and p-type semiconductor material: either npn or pnp. The middle section is known as the "base" and the other two as the "collector" and "emitter". When used as an amplifying element, the base to emitter junction is in a "forward-biased" (conducting) condition, and the base to collector junction is "reverse-biased" or non-conducting. Small changes in the base to emitter current (the input signal) cause either holes (for pnp devices) or free electrons (for npn) to enter the base from the emitter. The attracting voltage of the collector causes the majority of these charges to cross into and be collected by the collector, resulting in amplification. Contrast field effect transistor.
- 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
- bloodbrain barrier — a layer of tightly packed cells that make up the walls of brain capillaries and prevent substances in the blood from diffusing freely into the brain: passage across the cell membranes is determined by solubility in the lipid bilayer or recognition by a transport molecule.
- 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.
- board of examiners — a group of people who officially administer examinations
- board of governors — a group of people who oversee the running of a school
- boltzmann constant — the ratio of the gas constant to the Avogadro constant, equal to 1.380 650 × 10–23 joule per kelvin
- bomb disposal unit — a unit of the police or armed services specializing in bomb disposal
- boole's inequality — the theorem that the probability of several events occurring is less than or equal to the sum of the probabilities of each event occurring.
- borax pentahydrate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble solid, Na 2 B 4 O 7 ⋅5H 2 O, used chiefly for killing weeds, as a water softener, and as a disinfectant and deodorizing agent.
- bore the pants off — to bore extremely
- bosnia-herzegovina — a country in SE Europe; a constituent republic of Yugoslavia until 1991; in a state of civil war (1992–95); Serbian and Croatian forces were also involved: mostly barren and mountainous, with forests in the east. Languages: Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian (formerly all regarded together as Serbo-Croat). Religion: Muslim, Serbian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic. Currency: marka (pegged to the euro). Capital: Sarajevo. Pop: 3 875 723 (2013 est). Area: 51 129 sq km (19 737 sq miles)
- boston baked beans — haricot beans baked with belly pork and molasses
- boston brown bread — a dark, sweetened, steamed bread made of cornmeal, rye or wheat flour, etc., and molasses
- bottle-nosed whale — any of various beaked whales of the family Hyperoodontidae, characterized by a bulbous forehead, especially Hyperoodon ampullatus of the North Atlantic.
- 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.
- bounty-fed farmers — farmers who benefit from subsidies
- bourdon-tube gauge — an instrument for measuring the pressure of gases or liquids, consisting of a semicircular or coiled, flexible metal tube attached to a gauge that records the degree to which the tube is straightened by the pressure of the gas or liquid inside.
- 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.
- brazilian rosewood — a Brazilian tree, Dalbergia nigra, of the legume family.
- breach of contract — the act of breaking the conditions of a contract
- 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.