15-letter words containing r, c, o
- bibliographical — a complete or selective list of works compiled upon some common principle, as authorship, subject, place of publication, or printer.
- bicycle touring — the activity of touring on a bicycle
- bidirectionally — in a bidirectional manner
- bioastronautics — the study of the effects of space flight on living organisms
- biodestructible — biodegradable
- biogeochemistry — the science of biological, chemical, and geological aspects of the environment
- biscuit tortoni — an individual portion of tortoni, frozen and served in a small cup, often topped with ground almonds.
- bits per second — (communications, unit) (bps, b/s) The unit in which data rate is measured. For example, a modem's data rate is usually measured in kilobits per second. In 1996, the maximum modem speed for use on the PSTN was 33.6 kbps, rising to 56 kbps in 1997. Note that kilo- (k), mega- (M), etc. in data rates denote powers of 1000, not 1024.
- black horehound — a hairy unpleasant-smelling chiefly Mediterranean plant, Ballota nigra, having clusters of purple flowers: family Lamiaceae (labiates)
- black operation — a covert and undocumented military operation
- black snakeroot — a tall bugbane, Cimicifuga racemosa, of the buttercup family, of eastern North America, having thin, tapering, toothed or deeply cut leaflets and branched clusters of small, white flowers.
- bladder campion — a European caryophyllaceous plant, Silene vulgaris, having white flowers with an inflated calyx
- blockade runner — a person, ship etc that tries to carry goods through a blockade
- blockade-runner — a ship or person that passes through a blockade.
- blocked records — (storage) Several records written as a contiguous block on magnetic tape so that they may be accessed in a single I/O operation. Blocking increases the amount of data that may be stored on a tape because there are fewer inter-block gaps. It requires that the tape drive or processor have a sufficiently large buffer to store the whole block.
- blood corpuscle — one of the cells in the blood
- bloody butchers — a hardy plant, Trillium sessile, common from New York to Georgia and westward, having stalkless, purple or green flowers.
- blotch printing — a fabric-printing method in which the ground color is transferred from the cylinder and the motif retains the original hue of the cloth.
- blow one's cork — to lose one's temper; become enraged
- boa constrictor — A boa constrictor is a large snake that kills animals by wrapping itself round their bodies and squeezing them to death. Boa constrictors are found mainly in South and Central America and the West Indies.
- board-certified — A doctor who is board-certified has passed tests and meets the standards of a board of specialists in their area of medicine.
- boarding school — A boarding school is a school which some or all of the pupils live in during the school term. Compare day school.
- booster cushion — an extra seat or cushion placed on an existing seat for a child to sit on in a car
- border incident — an incident, usually fighting, on a border between countries
- borderline case — a person or thing that is not clearly classifiable as something
- borough council — a local government body elected by a borough
- borrower's card — a card issued by a library to individuals or organizations entitling them or their representatives to borrow materials.
- borscht circuit — summer resort hotels in the Catskills and White Mountains, where entertainment is provided for the guests
- boston massacre — an outbreak (1770) in Boston against British troops, in which a few citizens were killed
- bourbon biscuit — a rich chocolate-flavoured biscuit with a chocolate-cream filling
- boustrophedonic — of or relating to lines written in opposite directions
- box chronometer — a ship's chronometer, supported on gimbals in a wooden box
- box huckleberry — a nearly prostrate evergreen huckleberry shrub, Gaylussacia brachycera, of central to eastern North America, having short clusters of white or pink flowers and blue fruit.
- brachiocephalic — of, relating to, or supplying the arm and head
- brachistochrone — the curve between two points through which a body moves under the force of gravity in a shorter time than for any other curve; the path of quickest descent
- brachystomatous — having a short proboscis, as certain insects.
- branchial pouch — one of a series of rudimentary outcroppings of the inner pharyngeal wall, corresponding to the branchial grooves on the surface.
- branchiostegous — branchiostegal.
- breach of faith — a violation of good faith, confidence, or trust; betrayal: To abandon your friends now would be a breach of faith.
- breach of trust — a violation of duty by a trustee or any other person in a fiduciary position
- breakdown cover — insurance cover against breakdowns in a vehicle
- breeder reactor — a type of nuclear reactor that produces more fissionable material than it consumes
- bristol channel — an inlet of the Atlantic, between S Wales and SW England, merging into the Severn estuary. Length: about 137 km (85 miles)
- british council — an organization founded (1934) to extend the influence of British culture and education throughout the world
- british telecom — the popular name for British Telecommunications Group plc, the dominant fixed line telecommunications and broadband internet provider in the United Kingdom
- britneyfication — the effect on clothes and fashions of following the revealing styles favoured by the US pop singer Britney Spears (born 1981)
- broadcast storm — (networking) A broadcast on a network that causes multiple hosts to respond by broadcasting themselves, causing the storm to grow exponentially in severity. See network meltdown.
- broca's aphasia — a type of aphasia caused by a lesion in Broca's area of the brain, characterized by misarticulated speech and lack of grammatical morphemes.
- brocken specter — an optical phenomenon sometimes occurring at high altitudes when the image of an observer placed between the sun and a cloud is projected on the cloud as a greatly magnified shadow.
- bromoil process — a process for making an offset reproduction by first making a photographic print on paper with a silver bromide emulsion, wetting it, and then using it as a lithographic plate, the lighter parts of the emulsion tending to repel the oil base of the ink and the darker parts tending to hold it.