14-letter words containing o, u, t, l
- auger-electron — a nonradiative process in which an atom in an excited state undergoes a transition to a lower state by the emission of a bound electron (Auger electron) rather than by the emission of an x-ray.
- aurothiomalate — (chemistry) A thiomalate with the addition of gold.
- author catalog — a catalog whose entries are listed by author, editor, compiler, translator, or other party considered to have responsibility for the creation or assembly of the work specified.
- authority file — a file, either on cards or in machine-readable format, in which decisions involving bibliographic records, particularly for form of entry, are recorded to establish a precedent or rule for subsequent decisions and to provide for consistency of entries.
- autocollimator — an instrument combining the functions of a telescope and collimator, for detecting and measuring very small deviations in a beam of light.
- autocorrelator — (electronics) A device that modifies a signal with a delayed copy of itself in order to detect any periodic signal hidden in the noise.
- autocratically — In an autocratic manner.
- autoenrollment — Automatic enrollment (especially of security certificates in a computer system).
- autopilot code — (jargon, humour) Code that was written by a programmer on "auto-pilot" who wasn't really thinking about what they were doing.
- autopolyploidy — having more than two haploid sets of chromosomes that are derived from the same ancestral species.
- autoregulation — the continual automatic adjustment or self-regulation of a biochemical, physiological, or ecological system to maintain a stable state.
- autotetraploid — an individual or strain whose chromosome complement consists of four copies of a single genome due to doubling of an ancestral chromosome complement
- autotransplant — autograft.
- auxiliary note — a nonharmonic note occurring between two harmonic notes
- auxiliary tone — a melodic ornamental tone following a principal tone by a step above or below and returning to the principal tone; embellishment.
- back catalogue — A musical performer's back catalogue is the music which they recorded and released in the past rather than their latest recordings.
- balsam of tolu — tolu
- be out of luck — If you say that someone is out of luck, you mean that they cannot have something which they can normally have.
- beaufort scale — an international scale of wind velocities ranging for practical purposes from 0 (calm) to 12 (hurricane force). In the US an extension of the scale, from 13 to 17 for winds over 64 knots, is used
- beauty parlour — A beauty parlour is a place where women can go to have beauty treatments, for example to have their hair, nails or make-up done.
- bilious attack — a group of symptoms consisting of headache, abdominal pain, and constipation
- biolinguistics — the study of language functions as they relate to or derive from the biological characteristics of an organism.
- bioluminescent — the production of light by living organisms.
- bleat on about — If you say that someone is bleating on about something, you mean that they are talking about it a great deal in a way which makes them sound weak and irritating.
- block faulting — the process by which tensional forces in the earth's crust cause large bodies of rock to founder.
- block mountain — a mountain produced by faulting and the uplifting of large blocks of rock
- blood and guts — dealing with or depicting war or violence, especially in a lurid manner: a blood-and-guts movie.
- blood-and-guts — dealing with or depicting war or violence, especially in a lurid manner: a blood-and-guts movie.
- blue mountains — a mountain range in the US, in NE Oregon and SE Washington. Highest peak: Rock Creek Butte, 2773 m (9097 ft)
- bluebottle fly — any of several iridescent blue blow flies, especially those of the genus Calliphora, some of which are parasitic on domestic animals.
- body beautiful — a beautiful body
- borrow trouble — to worry about anything needlessly or before one has sufficient cause
- boston lettuce — a type of butterhead lettuce
- bottle turning — the turning of the legs of chairs, tables, etc., in manufacturing to give certain sections an ornamental, bottlelike form.
- bouleversement — an overthrow or reversal; violent turmoil
- boutique hotel — A boutique hotel is a small, high-quality and usually attractive hotel.
- bread poultice — a poultice made from breadcrumbs
- bronchial tube — Your bronchial tubes are the two tubes which connect your windpipe to your lungs.
- buckwheat coal — anthracite coal in sizes ranging from 5/16 to 9/16 inch (7.9 to 13.9 m).
- buffalo beetle — the hairy larva of a carpet beetle (Anthrenus scrophulariae), harmful to furs and woolens
- bug-compatible — Said of a design or revision that has been badly compromised by a requirement to be compatible with fossils or misfeatures in other programs or (especially) previous releases of itself. "MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path separator to be bug-compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an option character in 1.0."
- builder's knot — clove hitch
- bulk transport — the transport of large quantities of goods or commodities in lorries, ships, or by rail
- bull's-eye rot — a disease of apples and pears, characterized by sunken, eyelike spots on the fruit and twig cankers, caused by any of several fungi, especially of the genus Neofabraea.
- bulletin board — A bulletin board is a board which is usually attached to a wall in order to display notices giving information about something.
- butterfly bomb — Military. a small, aerial, antipersonnel bomb with two folding wings that revolve, slowing the rate of descent and arming the fuze.
- butterfly knot — a particularly resistant knot which resembles a butterfly and can take loads on both ends, as well as on the loop
- butterfly roof — a roof having more than one slope, each descending inward from the eaves.
- butylene group — any of four bivalent isomeric groups having the formula –C 4 H 8 –.
- call of nature — Some people talk about a call of nature when referring politely to the need to go to the toilet.