15-letter words containing o, r, a, e
- augusta gregory — Lady Augusta (Isabella Augusta Persse) 1852–1932, Irish dramatist.
- aurora borealis — the aurora seen around the North Pole
- authoritatively — having due authority; having the sanction or weight of authority: an authoritative opinion.
- autobiographers — Plural form of autobiographer.
- autobiographies — Plural form of autobiography.
- autocorrelation — the condition occurring when successive items in a series are correlated so that their covariance is not zero and they are not independent
- autocorrelative — Relating to autocorrelation.
- autodestructive — likely to cause one's own destruction
- autofluorescent — Of, pertaining to, or exhibiting autofluorescence.
- automata theory — the formal study of the power of computation of abstract machines
- automatic drive — an automotive transmission requiring either very little or no manual shifting of gears.
- automatic rifle — a type of light machine gun capable of firing automatically or in single shots.
- autostereoscopy — The display of stereoscopic images without the use of special viewing equipment.
- autotetraploidy — the generation of the tetraploid state, created by the fusing of two nuclei from the same species
- autotransformer — a transformer in which part of the winding is common to both primary and secondary circuits
- aviator glasses — sunglasses that look like goggles
- azerty keyboard — a common European version of typewriter keyboard layout with the characters a, z, e, r, t, and y positioned on the top row of alphabetic characters at the left side of the keyboard
- azobisformamide — (chemistry) azodicarbonamide.
- back projection — a method of projecting pictures onto a translucent screen so that they are viewed from the opposite side, used esp in films to create the illusion that the actors in the foreground are moving
- backup software — (tool, software) Software for doing a backup, often included as part of the operating system. Backup software should provide ways to specify what files get backed up and to where. It may include its own scheduling function to automate the procedure or, preferably, work with generic scheduling facilities. It may include facilities for managing the backup media (e.g. maintaining an index of tapes) and for restoring files from backups. Examples are Unix's dump command and Windows's ntbackup.
- baconian theory — the theory attributing the authorship of Shakespeare's plays to Francis Bacon.
- bacterial ghost — a bacterial cell that is emptied and filled artificially with another substance
- bacteriological — Of or relating to bacteriology or bacteria.
- bacteriophagous — Pertaining to the predation and consumption of bacterium.
- bad housekeeper — a person who is not an efficient and thrifty domestic manager
- balance control — a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.
- balloon barrage — a series of moored balloons, usually strung together and hung with cables, for impeding a low-level attack by enemy aircraft.
- ballroom dancer — a person who participates in ballroom dancing
- bandstop filter — A bandstop filter is a filter designed to eliminate all frequencies within a band of frequencies.
- baptism of fire — If someone who has just begun a new job has a baptism of fire, they immediately have to cope with very many severe difficulties and obstacles.
- bar examination — a written examination to determine if one is qualified to practice law in a particular jurisdiction.
- bar-code reader — an electronic machine that scans and reads bar codes
- barcelona chair — an armless, padded leather chair on a steel frame shaped like a curved X: Barcelona is a trademark for this chair
- barefoot doctor — (esp in developing countries) a worker trained as a medical auxiliary in a rural area who dispenses medicine, gives first aid, assists at childbirth, etc
- bargain counter — a store counter on which goods are displayed for sale at reduced prices
- barium chloride — a poisonous compound, BaCl2, consisting of flat white crystals that are soluble in water: it is used to treat water, metals, leather, etc.
- barium chromate — a yellow, crystalline compound, BaCrO 4 , used as a pigment (barium yellow)
- barium peroxide — a gray-white powder, BaO2, used as a bleach and in making hydrogen peroxide
- barn conversion — the adaptation of a farm barn into a building serving a different use, such as a house or commercial premises
- barn-door skate — an Atlantic skate, Raja laevis, that grows to a length of 4 feet (1.2 meters) or more.
- barothermograph — an automatic instrument for recording pressure and temperature.
- barrage balloon — Barrage balloons are large balloons which are fixed to the ground by strong steel cables. They are used in wartime, when the cables are intended to destroy low-flying enemy aircraft.
- basic autocoder — Early system on IBM 7070. Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959).
- basse-normandie — a region of NW France, on the English Channel: consists of the Cherbourg peninsula in the west rising to the Normandy hills in the east; mainly agricultural
- bathroom scales — scales typically kept in a bathroom for people to weigh themselves
- bathythermogram — a record made by a bathythermograph.
- be raring to go — If you say that you are raring to go, you mean that you are very eager to start doing something.
- beach goldenrod — a composite plant, Solidago sempervirens, of eastern and southern North America, having a thick stem and large, branched, one-sided terminal clusters of yellow flowers, flourishing on sea beaches or salt marshes.
- beam-power tube — a vacuum tube in which the stream of electrons flowing to the plate is focused by the action of a set of auxiliary, charged elements, giving an increase in output power.
- bear comparison — to be sufficiently similar in class or range to be compared with (something else), esp favourably