21-letter words containing o, n
- 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.
- book of common prayer — the official book of church services of the Church of England, until 1980, when the Alternative Service Book was sanctioned
- borrowing requirement — the amount that needs to be borrowed to fill a budget deficit
- bottom-up programming — a programming technique in which lower-level modules are developed before higher-level modules.
- bovine growth hormone — a growth hormone of cattle; esp., this hormone synthesized artificially and administered to beef cattle to increase growth rate and reduce fat and to dairy cows to increase milk production
- 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.
- box-office attraction — something or something that persuades people to buy tickets for a film or play
- brainstorming session — a meeting held for the purpose of intensive discussion to solve problems or generate ideas
- break someone's heart — an act or instance of breaking; disruption or separation of parts; fracture; rupture: There was a break in the window.
- breakthrough bleeding — bleeding from the uterus that occurs between menstrual periods
- british north america — (formerly) Canada or its constituent regions or provinces that formed part of the British Empire
- bromine pentafluoride — a colorless, corrosive liquid, BrF 5 , used as an oxidizer in liquid rocket propellants.
- bryan-chamorro treaty — a treaty (1914) between the U.S. and Nicaragua by which the U.S. secured exclusive rights to build a canal across Nicaragua, to connect the Atlantic and Pacific.
- 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
- burroughs corporation — (company) A company which merged with Sperry Univac to form Unisys Corporation. They produced the Datatron 200 series among other computers.
- 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.
- by no manner of means — definitely not
- byte-code interpreter — (software) A program that executes a byte code program. An example is the Java Virtual Machine.
- cancellation deadline — A cancellation deadline is a date before which you must cancel a hotel reservation without paying any money.
- canticle of canticles — another name for the Song of Solomon, used in the Douay Bible
- cantilever foundation — a building foundation supporting its load partly or wholly upon cantilevers.
- caroline of brunswick — 1768–1821, wife of George IV of the United Kingdom: tried for adultery (1820)
- cartesian coordinates — a system of representing points in space in terms of their distance from a given origin measured along a set of mutually perpendicular axes. Written (x,y,z) with reference to three axes
- casing collar locator — A casing collar locator is a tool that is placed down the borehole to allow depths to be measured by detecting the position of the casing collar.
- castellon de la plana — a port in E Spain. Pop: 160 714 (2003 est)
- cat on a hot tin roof — a play (1955) by Tennessee Williams.
- catch one flat footed — having flatfeet.
- category merchandiser — A category merchandiser is a person whose job is to maintain stocks, manage displays and promote sales of a certain product category such as footwear.
- catherine of braganza — 1638–1705, wife of Charles II of England, daughter of John IV of Portugal
- caviar to the general — a thing appealing only to a highly cultivated taste: Hamlet II, ii
- central european time — the standard time adopted by Western European countries one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, corresponding to British Summer Time
- central limit theorem — any of several theorems stating that the sum of a number of random variables obeying certain conditions will assume a normal distribution as the number of variables becomes large.
- certificate of origin — a document stating the name of the country that produced a specified shipment of goods: often required before importation of goods
- character development — the portrayal of people in a work of fiction in such a way that the reader or audience seems to learn more about them as they develop
- character recognition — Character recognition is a process which allows computers to recognize written or printed characters such as numbers or letters and to change them into a form that the computer can use.
- charity commissioners — (in Britain) members of a commission constituted to keep a register of charities and control charitable trusts
- chequebook journalism — Chequebook journalism is the practice of paying people large sums of money for information about crimes or famous people in order to get material for newspaper articles.
- chief warrant officer — a senior-ranking warrant officer in various armed forces
- chinese forget-me-not — an eastern Asian plant, Cynoglossum amabile, of the borage family, having lance-shaped leaves and clustered, showy, blue, pink, or white flowers.
- chinese water torture — a form of torture in which water is made to drip for a long period of time onto a victim's forehead to drive him insane
- chink in one's armour — a small but fatal weakness
- choledochojejunostomy — (medicine) The surgical formation of an opening between the common bile duct and the jejunum.
- christmas decorations — decorations of different kinds appropriate to Christmas, such as tinsel, candles, images of angels, etc.