12-letter words containing p, a, b
- back-patting — an act or instance of offering praise or congratulation: The winners indulged in a certain amount of mutual back-patting.
- back-slapper — the practice of making a loud and effusive display of friendliness, cordiality, etc., as by slapping persons on the back.
- back-stopped — a wall, wire screen, or the like, serving to prevent a ball from going too far beyond the normal playing area.
- backflipping — the process of reversing one's position
- backpedaling — to retard the forward motion by pressing backward on the pedal, especially of a bicycle with coaster brakes.
- backpedalled — (AU, NZ, British) Simple past tense and past participle of backpedal.
- backpressure — a resistant pressure exerted by liquid or gas against the forward motion or flow of an exhaust or pipe system: Careful control of backpressure ensures an even supply of oil from the well.
- backslapping — Backslapping is noisy, cheerful behavior which people use in order to show affection or appreciation to each other.
- backsplashes — Plural form of backsplash.
- backstopping — a wall, wire screen, or the like, serving to prevent a ball from going too far beyond the normal playing area.
- backup light — Backup lights are the white lights on the back of a vehicle that shine when the vehicle moves backward.
- bad-tempered — Someone who is bad-tempered is not very cheerful and gets angry easily.
- baden-powell — Robert Stephenson Smyth (smɪθ, smaɪθ), 1st Baron Baden-Powell. 1857–1941, British general, noted for his defence of Mafeking (1899–1900) in the Boer War; founder of the Boy Scouts (1908) and (with his sister Agnes) the Girl Guides (1910)
- badger plane — a plane for finishing rabbets or the like.
- baffle plate — a plate or mechanical device designed to restrain or regulate the flow of a fluid, the emission of light or sound, or the distribution of sound, esp in a loudspeaker or microphone
- baffle-plate — a plate used as a baffle.
- baked potato — a large potato baked in its skin
- balance pipe — a pipe between two points used to equalize pressure
- bald cypress — a tree, Taxodium distichum, of swampy areas of the southern U.S., having featherlike needles and cone-shaped projections growing up from the roots, yielding a hardwood used in construction, shipbuilding, etc.
- baldwin park — city in SW Calif.: suburb of Los Angeles: pop. 76,000
- ballad opera — an opera consisting of popular tunes to which appropriate words have been set, interspersed with spoken dialogue
- ballot paper — A ballot paper is a piece of paper on which you indicate your choice or opinion in an election or ballot.
- balsam apple — an ornamental cucurbitaceous vine, Momordica balsamina, of the Old World tropics, with yellow flowers and orange egg-shaped fruits
- banach space — a vector space on which a norm is defined that is complete.
- banana prawn — a prawn of the genus Penaeus, fished commercially in tropical waters of N Australia
- banana split — A banana split is a kind of dessert. It consists of a banana cut in half along its length, with ice cream, nuts, and sauce on top.
- band of hope — a society promoting lifelong abstention from alcohol among young people: founded in Britain in 1847
- bank deposit — money placed in a bank account
- bankruptcies — Plural form of bankruptcy.
- baptisteries — Plural form of baptistery.
- barbecue pit — a trench in which wood or charcoal is burned for barbecuing
- barge couple — either of a pair of outside rafters along the gable end of a roof
- barophoresis — the diffusion of suspended particles at a rate dependent on external forces
- baroreceptor — a collection of sensory nerve endings, principally in the carotid sinuses and the aortic arch, that monitor blood pressure changes in the body
- barrow point — the northernmost tip of Alaska, on the Arctic Ocean
- base jumping — a sport in which a participant parachutes from any of a variety of fixed objects such as high buildings, cliffs, etc
- base pairing — the hydrogen bonding that occurs between complementary nitrogenous bases in the two polynucleotide chains of a DNA molecule
- base-pairing — the process of binding separate DNA sequences by base pairs.
- baseball cap — A baseball cap is a close-fitting cap with a curved part at the front that sticks out above your eyes.
- basidiocarps — Plural form of basidiocarp.
- basidiospore — one of the spores, usually four in number, produced in a basidium
- basing point — a geographical location from which freight charges are computed by the seller regardless of the point from which the goods are shipped.
- basses-alpes — former name of Alpes-de-Haute Provence.
- bat printing — ornamenting of ceramics by means of an adhesive substance, as linseed oil, transferred onto the ceramic surface from a sheet of glue or gelatin, dusted with color, and fired.
- bathing wrap — a loose robe to wear after bathing, often made of towelling
- bathmophobia — The fear of stairs and slopes.
- bathophilous — (of an organism) living in very deep water
- bathygraphic — of or relating to the depths of the ocean
- bathypelagic — of, relating to, or inhabiting the lower depths of the ocean between approximately 1000 and 4000 metres
- bathyscaphes — Plural form of bathyscaphe.