17-letter words containing r, a, b, e, l
- cabbage butterfly — a common white butterfly (Pieris rapae) whose green larvae feed upon cabbage and related plants
- calcium carbonate — a white crystalline salt occurring in limestone, chalk, marble, calcite, coral, and pearl: used in the production of lime and cement. Formula: CaCO3
- call-by-reference — (programming) An argument passing convention where the address of an argument variable is passed to a function or procedure, as opposed to passing the value of the argument expression. Execution of the function or procedure may have side-effects on the actual argument as seen by the caller. The C language's "&" (address of) and "*" (dereference) operators allow the programmer to code explicit call-by-reference. Other languages provide special syntax to declare reference arguments (e.g. ALGOL 60). See also call-by-name, call-by-value, call-by-value-result.
- called to the bar — admitted to the practice of law as a barrister
- camberwell beauty — a nymphalid butterfly, Nymphalis antiopa, of temperate regions, having dark purple wings with cream-yellow borders
- camberwell carrot — a large, almost conical, marijuana cigarette
- canarybird flower — a nasturtium, Tropaeolum peregrinum, of Peru, having round, deeply lobed leaves and yellow flowers.
- cantilever bridge — a bridge having spans that are constructed as cantilevers and often a suspended span or spans, each end of which rests on one end of a cantilever span
- carbon disulphide — a colourless slightly soluble volatile flammable poisonous liquid commonly having a disagreeable odour due to the presence of impurities: used as an organic solvent and in the manufacture of rayon and carbon tetrachloride. Formula: CS2
- carbonyl chloride — phosgene
- carboxyhemoglobin — a compound formed in the blood when carbon monoxide occupies the positions on the hemoglobin molecule normally taken by oxygen, resulting in cellular oxygen starvation
- cardinal grosbeak — any of various mostly tropical American buntings, such as the cardinal and pyrrhuloxia, the males of which have brightly coloured plumage
- centrifugal brake — a safety mechanism on a hoist, crane, etc, that consists of revolving brake shoes that are driven outwards by centrifugal force into contact with a fixed brake drum when the rope drum revolves at excessive speed
- cerebral accident — a disturbance of the blood supply to parts of the brain because of blockage or hemorrhage, causing unconsciousness, paralysis, etc.; stroke
- charles lindbergh — Anne (Spencer) Morrow, 1906–2001, U.S. writer (wife of Charles Augustus Lindbergh).
- chicklet keyboard — (spelling) It's spelled "chiclet keyboard".
- churchyard beetle — a blackish nocturnal ground beetle, Blaps mucronata, found in cellars and similar places
- civil libertarian — a person who actively supports or works for the protection or expansion of civil liberties.
- clare boothe luce — Clare Boothe, 1903–87, U.S. writer, politician, and diplomat.
- class-b amplifier — an electronic amplifier in which the output flows for half of the input signal cycle
- clear box testing — white box testing
- clumber (spaniel) — a short-legged spaniel with a heavy body and a thick coat of straight, white hair marked with yellow or orange
- coliform bacteria — a large group of bacteria inhabiting the intestinal tract of humans and animals that may cause disease and whose presence in water is an indicator of faecal pollution
- collaborativeness — Quality of being collaborative.
- colour subcarrier — a component of a colour television signal on which is modulated the colour or chrominance information
- congo-brazzaville — a republic in W Central Africa: formerly the French colony of Middle Congo, part of French Equatorial Africa, it became independent in 1960; consists mostly of equatorial forest, with savanna and extensive swamps; drained chiefly by the Rivers Congo and Ubangi. Official language: French. Religion: Christian majority. Currency: franc. Capital: Brazzaville. Pop: 4 492 689 (2013 est). Area: 342 000 sq km (132 018 sq miles)
- contrasuggestible — responding or tending to respond to a suggestion by doing or believing the opposite
- cyrillic alphabet — the alphabet derived from that of the Greeks, supposedly by Saint Cyril, for the writing of Slavonic languages: now used primarily for Russian, Bulgarian, and the Serbian dialect of Serbo-Croat
- dagestan republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the Caspian Sea: annexed from Persia in 1813; rich mineral resources. Capital: Makhachkala. Pop: 2 584 200 (2002). Area: 50 278 sq km (19 416 sq miles)
- deoxyribonuclease — DNase.
- differentiability — The ability to be differentiated.
- discreditableness — Quality of being discreditable.
- discrete variable — a variable that may assume only a countable, and usually finite, number of values.
- dishonourableness — Alternative spelling of dishonorableness.
- disrespectability — Lack of respectability.
- double pair royal — a set of four cards of the same denomination, worth 12 points.
- double quatrefoil — a charge having the form of a foil with eight leaves, used especially as the cadency mark of a ninth son.
- double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.
- double track line — a railway line with double track
- douglas engelbart — (person) Douglas C. Engelbart, the inventor of the mouse. On 1968-12-09, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California, USA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the on live system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse, hypertext, object addressing, dynamic file linking and shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface. The original 90-minute video: Hyperlinks, Mouse, Web-board.
- downwardly mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
- downwardly-mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
- drive-by download — an incidence of an unwanted program being automatically downloaded to a computer, often without the user's knowledge
- dwarf huckleberry — tangleberry.
- electricity board — a company which supplies electricity
- english breakfast — An English breakfast is a breakfast consisting of cooked food such as bacon, eggs, sausages, and tomatoes. It also includes toast and tea or coffee.
- false bread-fruit — ceriman.
- federal land bank — a U.S. federal bank for making long-term loans to farmers.
- fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
- flowering tobacco — any plant belonging to the genus Nicotiana, of the nightshade family, as N. alata and N. sylvestris, having clusters of fragrant flowers that usually bloom at night, grown as an ornamental.