16-letter words containing p, l
- bicyclic terpene — (originally) any of a class of monocyclic hydrocarbons of the formula C 10 H 16 , obtained from plants.
- bimetallic strip — a strip consisting of two metals of different coefficients of expansion welded together so that it buckles on heating: used in thermostats, etc
- biocompatibility — the capability of coexistence with living tissues or organisms without causing harm: Artificial joint adhesives must have biocompatibility with bone and muscle.
- biotic potential — the capacity of a population of organisms to increase in numbers under optimum environmental conditions.
- bipolar disorder — Bipolar disorder is a mental illness in which a person's state of mind changes between extreme happiness and extreme depression.
- bird's-eye maple — a cut of sugar maple wood used especially for veneers, having a wavy grain with many dark, circular markings.
- bitter principle — any of various bitter-tasting substances, such as aloin, usually extracted from plants
- black bottom pie — a rich pie with a rum- or whiskey-flavored chocolate filling, often with a crust of crushed gingersnaps, and topped with whipped cream.
- black propaganda — propaganda that does not come from the source it claims to come from
- black woodpecker — a large woodpecker, Dryocopus martius, found in parts of Eurasia and Africa
- black-light trap — a trap for insects that uses ultraviolet light as an attractant.
- bleaching powder — a white powder with the odour of chlorine, consisting of chlorinated calcium hydroxide with an approximate formula CaCl(OCl).4H2O. It is used in solution as a bleaching agent and disinfectant
- blenheim spaniel — a variety of toy spaniel that is white with reddish-brown spots
- blink comparator — an optical instrument used to detect small differences in two photographs of the same field or object by viewing them alternately, switching rapidly from one to the other.
- bloomsbury group — a group of writers, artists, and intellectuals living and working in and around Bloomsbury in London from about 1907 to 1930. Influenced by the philosophy of G. E. Moore, they included Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Clive and Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry, E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and John Maynard Keynes
- boolean-operator — any operation in which each of the operands and the result take one of two values.
- bootstrap loader — (operating system) A short program loaded from non-volatile storage and used to bootstrap a computer. On early computers great efforts were expended on making the bootstrap loader short, in order to make it easy to toggle in via the front panel switches. It was just clever enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from punched cards or paper tape), to which it handed control. This program in turn read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer "pulled itself up by its bootstraps" to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap loader is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the "boot block". When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it. A diskless workstation can use bootp to load its OS from the network.
- bouquet larkspur — a plant, Delphinium grandiflorum, of eastern Asia, having blue or whitish flowers and hairy fruit.
- bowman's capsule — a membranous, double-walled capsule surrounding a glomerulus of a nephron.
- brain aid prolog — (language) (BAP) A parallel Prolog environment for transputer systems by Frank Bergmann <[email protected]>, Martin Ostermann <[email protected]>, and Guido von Walter <[email protected]> of Brain Aid Systems GbR. BAP is based on a model of communicating sequential Prolog processes. The run-time system consists of a multi-process operating system with support for several applications running concurrently.
- breeding plumage — the plumage assumed by a male bird during the courtship period, especially in those species that are more colorful at this period.
- bristlecone pine — a coniferous tree, Pinus aristata, of the western US, bearing cones with bristle-like prickles: one of the longest-lived trees, useful in radiocarbon dating
- brittany spaniel — a short-tailed French bird dog that typically has a smooth orange- or liver-and-white coat
- broadloom carpet — any carpet woven on a wide loom and not having seams, especially one wider than 54 inches (137 cm).
- broomrape family — the plant family Orobanchaceae, characterized by scaly, leafless herbaceous plants that are parasitic on the roots of other plants and have irregular flowers and many-seeded capsular fruit, and including beechdrops, broomrape, and squawroot.
- brothel-creepers — soft-soled men's shoes that were originally popular in the 1950s
- bulletproof vest — a protective garment
- burkitt lymphoma — a rare type of tumour of the white blood cells, occurring mainly in Africa and associated with infection by Epstein-Barr virus
- buttercup family — the plant family Ranunculaceae, typified by mostly herbaceous plants having usually alternate leaves, multistaminate flowers sometimes lacking petals but with colorful sepals, and including the anemone, buttercup, clematis, columbine, delphinium, and monkshood.
- butterfly damper — a damper, as in a flue, that rotates about a central axis across its face.
- button one's lip — to stop talking: often imperative
- cabbage palmetto — a tropical American fan palm, Sabal palmetto, with edible leaf buds and leaves used in thatching
- cadmium sulphide — an orange or yellow insoluble solid used as a pigment in paints, etc (cadmium yellow). Formula: CdS
- california poppy — a papaveraceous plant, Eschscholtzia californica, of the Pacific coast of North America, having yellow or orange flowers and finely divided bluish-green leaves
- calligraphically — In a calligraphic manner: using calligraphy.
- camomile shampoo — a liquid or cream preparation of soap or detergent with camomile extract to wash the hair
- can't tell apart — If you can't tell two people or things apart, they look exactly the same to you.
- can-not help but — to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need; contribute strength or means to; render assistance to; cooperate effectively with; aid; assist: He planned to help me with my work. Let me help you with those packages.
- cape cod lighter — a device for lighting a fire, as in a fireplace, consisting of a lump of nonflammable material on a metal rod, that is soaked in kerosene or the like and lighted with a match.
- cape may warbler — a North American wood warbler, Dendroica tigrina, olive-green striped with black on the wings and back and yellow striped with black on the breast.
- capelli d'angelo — angel hair.
- capillary action — Also called capillary action, capillary attraction. Physics. a manifestation of surface tension by which the portion of the surface of a liquid coming in contact with a solid is elevated or depressed, depending on the adhesive or cohesive properties of the liquid.
- capillary-action — Also called capillary action, capillary attraction. Physics. a manifestation of surface tension by which the portion of the surface of a liquid coming in contact with a solid is elevated or depressed, depending on the adhesive or cohesive properties of the liquid.
- capital employed — the money used by a business for buying land, buildings, equipment etc
- capital movement — the payments that flow between countries
- capital reserves — the money which a company holds in reserve
- capital sentence — the punishment of death for a crime
- capitalistically — In a capitalistic manner.
- capsule wardrobe — a collection of clothes and accessories that includes only items considered essential
- carbonless paper — a sheet of paper impregnated with dye which transfers writing or typing onto the copying surface below without the necessity for carbon pigment