20-letter words containing o, r, i
- brachiocephalic vein — either of two major veins, formed by the merger of the subclavian and internal jugular veins, that drain blood from the head and arms.
- breakerless ignition — electronic ignition.
- breakfast television — Breakfast television refers to television programmes which are broadcast in the morning at the time when most people are having breakfast.
- bring down the house — to receive enthusiastic applause from the audience
- bring home the bacon — If you bring home the bacon, you achieve what you needed to achieve.
- bring into the world — (of a midwife, doctor, etc) to deliver (a baby)
- bring the house down — to win great applause
- bring to one's knees — to force to submit or give in
- bring to sb's notice — If you bring something to someone's notice, you make them aware of it.
- bring x to its knees — To present a computer, operating system, piece of software, or algorithm with a load so extreme or pathological that it grinds to a halt. "To bring a MicroVAX to its knees, try twenty users running vi - or four running Emacs." Compare hog.
- british north borneo — former name of Sabah.
- brittle bone disease — bone disorder
- broadcast journalism — journalism as practiced in radio and television.
- broadcasting station — a television or radio station
- broaden o's/the mind — If an experience broadens your mind, it makes you more willing to accept other people's beliefs and customs.
- brown lung (disease) — a chronic disease of the lungs caused by inhalation of fine textile fibers, esp. cotton; byssinosis
- brown recluse spider — a very poisonous, medium-sized spider (Loxosceles reclusa), common in the U.S., having a violin-shaped mark on its cephalothorax and only six eyes
- buck's horn plantain — a Eurasian plant, Plantago coronopus, having leaves resembling a buck's horn: family Plantaginaceae
- by their own account — If you say that something concerning a particular person is true by his or her own account, you mean that you believe it because that person has said it is true.
- calcium hypochlorite — a white, crystalline compound, Ca(OCl) 2 , used as a disinfectant and bleaching agent.
- california barracuda — a small, slender barracuda, Sphyraena argentea, of coastal seas from Alaska to Baja California, valued as a food fish.
- california gold fern — an evergreen fern, Pityrogramma triangularis, growing from British Columbia to California, having the underside of the leaves covered with a deep yellow, powderlike substance.
- cancel a reservation — If you cancel a reservation, you stop it because someone who has booked a room has informed you that they no longer wish to stay there.
- canine leptospirosis — an often fatal intestinal disease in dogs, caused by any of several spirochetes of the genus Leptospira.
- cantabrian mountains — a mountain chain along the N coast of Spain, consisting of a series of high ridges that rise over 2400 m (8000 ft): rich in minerals (esp coal and iron)
- capacitive crosstalk — Capacitive crosstalk is a situation in which a signal on one line can cause a smaller version of the same signal on an adjacent line because of the capacitance between the lines.
- cape prince of wales — a cape in W Alaska, on the Bering Strait opposite the coast of the extreme northeast of Russia: the westernmost point of North America
- capillary attraction — a force that is the resultant of adhesion, cohesion, and surface tension in liquids which are in contact with solids, as in a capillary tube: when the cohesive force is greater, the surface of the liquid tends to rise in the tube, as with mercury; when the adhesive force is greater, the surface tends to be depressed, as with water
- capital transactions — the flow of money and assets
- carbocyclic compound — any of a group of organic chemical compounds in which all the atoms composing the ring are carbon atoms, as benzene or cyclopropane.
- carbohydrate loading — the practice of eating high amounts of carbohydrates, sometimes after a period of low carbohydrate intake, for several days immediately before competing in an athletic event, especially a marathon, in order to store glycogen in the body, thereby providing greater reserves of energy.
- carbon sequestration — the prevention of greenhouse gas build-up in the earth's atmosphere by methods such as planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide or pumping carbon dioxide into underground reservoirs
- carbon tetrachloride — a colourless volatile nonflammable sparingly soluble liquid made from chlorine and carbon disulphide; tetrachloromethane. It is used as a solvent, cleaning fluid, and insecticide. Formula: CCl4
- career limiting move — (jargon) (CLM, Sun) Any action endangering one's future prospects of getting plum projects and raises, and possibly one's job. E.g. "His Halloween costume was a parody of his manager. He won the prize for "best CLM"." A severe bug discovered by a customer might be a "CLM bug".
- carpathian mountains — a mountain system of central and E Europe, extending from Slovakia to central Romania: mainly forested, with rich iron ore resources. Highest peak: Gerlachovka, 2663 m (8788 ft)
- cartesian coordinate — Usually, Cartesian coordinates. a member of a system of coordinates for locating a point on a plane (Cartesian plane) by its distance from each of two intersecting lines, or in space by its distance from each of three planes intersecting at a point.
- case based reasoning — (artificial intelligence) (CBR) A technique for problem solving which looks for previous examples which are similar to the current problem. This is useful where heuristic knowledge is not available. There are many situations where experts are not happy to be questioned about their knowledge by people who want to write the knowledge in rules, for use in expert systems. In most of these situations, the natural way for an expert to describe his or her knowledge is through examples, stories or cases (which are all basically the same thing). Such an expert will teach trainees about the expertise by apprenticeship, i.e. by giving examples and by asking the trainees to remember them, copy them and adapt them in solving new problems if they describe situations that are similar to the new problems. CBR aims to exploit such knowledge. Some key research areas are efficient indexing, how to define "similarity" between cases and how to use temporal information.
- cassegrain telescope — an astronomical reflecting telescope in which incident light is reflected from a large concave paraboloid mirror onto a smaller convex hyperboloid mirror and then back through a hole in the concave mirror to form the image
- cast the first stone — the hard substance, formed of mineral matter, of which rocks consist.
- catastrophic failure — Catastrophic failure is sudden and complete failure which cannot be put right.
- catastrophic illness — A catastrophic illness is a major health event that takes place during a particular period of time, such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
- cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
- cellulose triacetate — a triacetic ester of cellulose characterized by its resistance to most solvents, used chiefly in the manufacture of textile fibers.
- center of percussion — the point on a rigid body, suspended so as to be able to move freely about a fixed axis, at which the body may be struck without changing the position of the axis.
- central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
- certificate of stock — stock certificate.
- certified accountant — (in Britain) a member of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, who is authorized to audit company accounts
- change a reservation — If you change a reservation, you move a booking to a different date because someone who has booked a room has informed you that they wish to stay there on a different date.
- chapter of accidents — a series of misfortunes
- character repertoire — (character) The set of all characters onto which a coded character set maps integers (code positions). For example, consider these two simple coded character sets: Coded Character Set One: integer 0 -> the character "A" integer 1 -> the character "B" Coded Character Set Two: integer 0 -> the character "B" integer 1 -> the character "A" Both of these coded character sets map to the characters "A" and "B", so they have the same character repertoire. But since the mapping is different (and obviously incompatible), these are different coded character sets.