16-letter words containing p, r, b
- chechen republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the N slopes of the Caucasus Mountains: major oil and natural gas resources; formed an Autonomous Republic with Ingushetia from 1936 until 1944 and from 1957 until 1991; declared independence from Ingushetia in 1992; fighting between Chechen separatists and Russian forces (1994–96) led to de facto independence: reoccupied by Russia in 1999–2000. Capital: Grozny. Pop: 1 100 300 (2002). Area: 15 700 sq km (6010 sq miles)
- chernobyl packet — (networking) /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ A network packet that induces a broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, named in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and destination Ethernet address and IP address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare Christmas tree packet.
- chuvash republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga valley: generally low-lying with undulating plains and large areas of forest. Capital: Cheboksary. Pop: 1 313 900 (2002). Area: 18 300 sq km (7064 sq miles)
- circumscriptible — Capable of being circumscribed or limited by bounds.
- cobra de capello — a cobra, Naja tripudians, that has ringlike markings on the body and exists in many varieties in S and SE Asia
- comparable worth — the doctrine that a woman's and man's pay should be equal when their work requires equal training, skills, and responsibilities.
- complex variable — a variable to which complex numbers may be assigned as value.
- composite number — a positive integer that can be factorized into two or more other positive integers
- cooperative bank — a cooperative savings institution, chartered and regulated by a state or the federal government, that receives deposits in exchange for shares of ownership and invests its funds chiefly in loans secured by first mortgages on homes.
- cops and robbers — a children's game in which a group of players imitate the behavior of police and of thieves, as in pursuing and capturing.
- cops-and-robbers — A cops-and-robbers film, television programme, or book is one whose story involves the police trying to catch criminals.
- copyright symbol — (character, legal) "©" The internationally recognised symbol required to introduce a copyright notice, a letter C with a circle around it. This can be encoded in ISO 8859-1 as character code decimal 169, hexadecimal A9, in HTML as ©, © or ©. A "c" in parentheses: "(c)" is sometimes used in documents stored in a coded character set such as ASCII that does not include the C in a circle, but this has no legal meaning.
- cracked up to be — alleged or believed to be
- cramp sb's style — If someone or something cramps your style, their presence or existence restricts your behavior in some way.
- cuban royal palm — a feather palm, Roystonea regia, of tropical America, having a trunk that is swollen in the middle, drooping leaves from 10 to 15 feet (3 to 5 meters) long, and small, round fruit.
- cytotrophoblasts — Plural form of cytotrophoblast.
- debut appearance — debut
- decision problem — (theory) A problem with a yes/no answer. Determining whether some potential solution to a question is actually a solution or not. E.g. "Is 43669" a prime number?". This is in contrast to a "search problem" which must find a solution from scratch, e.g. "What is the millionth prime number?". See decidability.
- dichlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of twelve isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing two chlorine atoms.
- disreputableness — The state or quality of being disreputable or disgraceful; disreputability.
- double precision — using twice the normal amount of storage, as two words rather than one, to represent a number.
- drinking problem — If someone is said to have a drink problem, they are thought to drink too much alcohol
- drop a bombshell — If someone drops a bombshell, they give you a sudden piece of bad or unexpected news.
- dublin bay prawn — a large prawn usually used in a dish of scampi
- duplicate bridge — a form of contract bridge used in tournaments in which contestants play the identical series of deals, with each deal being scored independently, permitting individual scores to be compared.
- eastern whipbird — an Australian whipbird, Psophodes olivaceus
- ebony spleenwort — a fern, Asplenium platyneuron, of woody areas of North America, having ladderlike leaves and shiny, dark brown stems.
- eclipsing binary — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
- edinburgh prolog — Prolog dialect which eventually developed into the standard, as opposed to Marseille Prolog. (The difference is largely syntax.) Clocksin & Mellish describe Edinburgh Prolog. Version: C-Prolog.
- experience table — an actuarial table, esp a mortality table based on past statistics
- false beechdrops — either of two parasitic or saprophytic plants of the genus Monotropa, especially the tawny or reddish M. hypopithys (false beechdrops) of eastern North America.
- flat-bed plotter — a mechanized drafting device, usually computer driven, incorporating a moving pen whose horizontal and vertical range in two dimensions is limited only by the size of the bed of the device.
- garbage disposal — A garbage disposal or a garbage disposal unit is a small machine in the kitchen sink that breaks down waste matter so that it does not block the sink.
- gingerbread palm — doom palm.
- gingerbread plum — a tree, Neocarya macrophylla, of western Africa, bearing a large, edible, starchy fruit.
- grant of probate — a certificate stating that a will is valid
- hybrid perpetual — a type of cultivated rose bred from varieties having vigorous growth and more or less recurrent bloom.
- hyperflexibility — capable of being bent, usually without breaking; easily bent: a flexible ruler.
- hyperreal number — any of the set of numbers formed by the addition of infinite numbers and infinitesimal numbers to the set of real numbers
- hypersensibility — capacity for sensation or feeling; responsiveness or susceptibility to sensory stimuli.
- hypersusceptible — hypersensitive (def 2).
- hypervariability — apt or liable to vary or change; changeable: variable weather; variable moods.
- impenetrableness — The quality of being impenetrable.
- imperceptibility — very slight, gradual, or subtle: the imperceptible slope of the road.
- imperfectability — The quality of not being perfectable; of being forever imperfect.
- imperfectibility — The state or quality of being imperfectible.
- imperishableness — The characteristic or property of being imperishable.
- impermissibility — The state or condition of being impermissible.
- imperturbability — incapable of being upset or agitated; not easily excited; calm: imperturbable composure.
- impracticability — The quality or condition of being impracticable.