18-letter words containing o, s, u
- be lost in thought — If you are lost in thought, you give all your attention to what you are thinking about and do not notice what is going on around you.
- be sure of oneself — If you are sure of yourself, you are very confident about your own abilities or opinions.
- beaujolais nouveau — the first Beaujolais wine of the season, usually available for sale within two months after the grapes are harvested.
- beefsteak mushroom — an edible bracket fungus, Fistulina hepatica, that grows on trees and can rot the heartwood of living oaks and chestnuts.
- behaviour patterns — the characteristic ways in which a person or animal acts
- best-ball foursome — a match, scored by holes, between two pairs of players, in which the score of the lower scoring member of each pair is taken as their score for the hole.
- 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
- 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
- blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
- 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.
- boulogne-sur-seine — an industrial suburb of SW Paris. Pop: 106 367 (1999)
- bounty-fed farmers — farmers who benefit from subsidies
- box-office success — a very successful film or play that earns a lot of money
- branch instruction — a machine-language or assembly-language instruction that causes the computer to branch to another instruction
- breach of security — an act that violates a country, area, or building's security measures
- 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.
- bring someone luck — If you say that something brings bad luck or brings someone good luck, you believe that it has an influence on whether good or bad things happen to them.
- briquet's syndrome — somatization disorder.
- broadcasting house — any of a number of buildings in the UK from which the BBC broadcasts or has broadcast
- bullnose stretcher — bull stretcher (def 1).
- bullnose-stretcher — Also called bullnose stretcher. a brick having one of the edges along its length rounded for laying as a stretcher in a sill or the like.
- burkitt's lymphoma — a cancer characterized by tumors containing lymphoid cells, occurring esp. in children, in the jaw, eyes, and internal organs: it is associated with the Epstein-Barr virus
- burn one's bridges — If you burn your bridges, you do something which forces you to continue with a particular course of action, and makes it impossible for you to return to an earlier situation or relationship.
- burn one's fingers — to suffer from having meddled or been rash
- bursa of fabricius — a lymphoid gland of the cloaca in birds, believed to function in disease resistance, and closing or disappearing as the bird ages.
- business education — education for general knowledge of business practices.
- butler's sideboard — a sideboard, often with a fall front, having on its top a china cabinet with glazed doors.
- cabernet sauvignon — a black grape originally grown in the Bordeaux area of France, and now throughout the wine-producing world
- california fuchsia — a North American onagraceous plant, Zauschneria californica, with tubular scarlet flowers
- california-fuchsia — a plant belonging to the genus Fuchsia, of the evening primrose family, including many varieties cultivated for their handsome drooping flowers.
- call into question — to raise a question or doubt about
- cambrian mountains — a mountain range in Wales, extending from Carmarthenshire in the S to Denbighshire in the N. Highest peak: Aran Fawddwy, 891 m (2970 ft)
- cartilaginous fish — any fish of the class Chondrichthyes, including the sharks, skates, and rays, having a skeleton composed entirely of cartilage
- cash-for-questions — of, involved in, or relating to a scandal in which some MPs were accused of accepting bribes to ask particular questions in Parliament
- cassius (longinus) — (Gaius)died 42 b.c.; Rom. general & conspirator against Caesar
- catalogue raisonne — a descriptive catalogue, esp one covering works of art in an exhibition or collection
- catskill mountains — a mountain range in SE New York State: resort. Highest peak: Slide Mountain, 1261 m (4204 ft)
- caucasus mountains — a mountain range in SW Russia, running along the N borders of Georgia and Azerbaijan, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea: mostly over 2700 m (9000 ft). Highest peak: Mount Elbrus, 5642 m (18 510 ft)
- cauliflower cheese — a dish of cauliflower with a cheese sauce, eaten hot
- cauliflower fungus — a large edible white to yellowish cauliflowerlike mushroom, Sparassis radicata, widely distributed in North America.
- causa sine qua non — an indispensable condition; requisite.
- centre of pressure — the point in a body at which the resultant pressure acts when the body is immersed in a fluid
- centum call second — (unit) (CCS) A unit used (in North America) to quantify the total traffic running in a network. 1 CCS is 100 call-seconds. That means 1 CCS could be 2 calls of 50 seconds duration or 20 calls of 5 seconds duration.
- charge of quarters — a member of the armed forces who handles administration in his or her unit, esp after duty hours
- chartered surveyor — (in Britain) a surveyor who is registered with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as having the qualifications, training, and experience to satisfy their professional requirements
- chebyshev equation — Tchebycheff equation.
- chinese revolution — the overthrow of the last Manchu emperor and the establishment of a republic in China (1911–12)
- chuck-will's-widow — a large North American nightjar, Caprimulgus carolinensis, similar to the whippoorwill
- church of scotland — the established church in Scotland, Calvinist in doctrine and Presbyterian in constitution