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17-letter words containing r, i

  • banking principle — the principle that bank notes are a form of credit and should be issued freely in order to maintain an elastic currency.
  • bar-tailed godwit — a large wader, Limosa lapponica, of the family Scolopacidae which, in migrating from Alaska to New Zealand, makes the longest journey without stopping for food taken by any animal
  • barbed wire fence — a fence constructed from strong wire that has sharply pointed barbs at close intervals along its length
  • barbed-wire grass — an aromatic grass, Cymbopogon refractus, with groups of seed heads resembling barbed wire
  • barber of seville — Italian Il barbiere di Siviglia. a comic opera (1816) by Gioacchino Rossini based on a comedy (1775) by Beaumarchais.
  • bari delle puglie — Italian name of Bari.
  • barmecide (feast) — a pretended feast with no food
  • barrel distortion — distortion of an image produced by an optical system that causes straight lines at image margins to bulge outwards
  • barrow-in-furness — an industrial town in NW England, in S Cumbria. Pop: 47 194 (2001)
  • bartholin's gland — either of two small glands near the vaginal opening: during sexual excitement they secrete a mucous lubricating substance
  • base lending rate — a minimum interest rate on which financial institutions base the rates they use for lending
  • baseboard heating — a heating system by pipes, through which steam or hot water circulates, near the base of the walls of rooms
  • basic proposition — protocol (def 6).
  • basic service set — (networking)   (BSS) A wireless local area network and all the wireless devices (e.g. PCs and laptops) that are associated with it. A BSS may or may not include an access point and is identified by a BSSID.
  • bathroom fittings — plumbing fixtures or accessories suitable for use in a bathroom
  • battle of britain — (in World War II) the series of aerial combats that took place between British and German aircraft during the autumn of 1940 and that included the severe bombardment of British cities.
  • bbc microcomputer — A series of 6502-based personal computers launched by Acorn Computers Ltd. in January 1982, for use in the British Broadcasting Corporation's educational programmes on computing. The computers are noted for their reliability (many are still in active service in 1994) and both hardware and software were designed for easy expansion. The 6502-based computers were succeeded in 1987 by the Acorn Archimedes family.
  • be a box of birds — to be very well indeed
  • be over the limit — If someone is over the limit, they have drunk more alcohol than they are legally allowed to when driving a vehicle.
  • be running scared — If you say that a person or group is running scared, you mean that they are frightened of what someone might do to them or what might happen.
  • be sitting pretty — If you say that someone is sitting pretty, you mean that they are in a good, safe, or comfortable position.
  • be well rid of sb — If you say that someone is well rid of someone, you think it is good that the person has gone because you did not like them or you think they caused a lot of problems.
  • beardmore glacier — one of the largest glaciers, in central Antarctica. About 125 miles (200 km) long.
  • beat one's brains — to try hard to remember, understand, or solve something
  • beer and skittles — enjoyment or pleasure
  • before one's time — prematurely
  • behaviour therapy — any of various means of treating psychological disorders, such as desensitization, aversion therapy, and instrumental conditioning, that depend on the patient systematically learning new modes of behaviour
  • believe it or not — You can use believe it or not to emphasize that what you have just said is surprising.
  • bell laboratories — One of AT&T's research sites, in Murray Hill, New Jersey, USA. It was the birthplace of the transistor, Unix, C and C++ and the current home of research on Plan 9 and ODE.
  • bell-hanger's bit — a bit for drilling small holes through studs or the like.
  • belleville spring — a spring having the form of a washer or dished disk with an open center, used for cushioning heavy loads with short motion.
  • bellflower family — the plant family Campanulaceae, characterized by chiefly herbaceous plants having simple, alternate leaves and solitary or clustered flowers with a bell-shaped, five-lobed, often blue or purple corolla, and including the harebell, Canterbury bells, and balloon flower.
  • belted kingfisher — a grayish-blue, North American kingfisher, Ceryle alcyon, having a white breast marked with a grayish-blue band.
  • benefit of clergy — sanction by the church
  • benjamin banneker — Benjamin, 1731–1806, U.S. mathematician, natural historian, and astronomer.
  • benjamin franklin — Aretha [uh-ree-thuh] /əˈri θə/ (Show IPA), born 1942, U.S. singer.
  • benoit mandelbrot — (person)   /ben'wa man'dl-bro/ Benoit B. Mandelbrot. The IBM scientist who wrote several original books on fractals and gave his name to the set he was discovered, the Mandelbrot set and coined the term "fractal" in 1975 from the Latin fractus or "to break".
  • bergisch gladbach — city in W Germany, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia: pop. 105,000
  • bergisch-gladbach — an industrial city in W Germany, near Cologne.
  • best first search — (algorithm)   A graph search algorithm which optimises breadth first search by ordering all current paths according to some heuristic. The heuristic attempts to predict how close the end of a path is to a solution. Paths which are judged to be closer to a solution are extended first. See also beam search, hill climbing.
  • between two fires — between two attacks; shot at, criticized, etc. from both sides
  • beyond comparison — outstanding, without equal
  • beyond redemption — If you say that someone or something is beyond redemption, you mean that they are so bad it is unlikely that anything can be done to improve them.
  • bicycle motocross — a bicycle race over a rough cross-country course, usually consisting of jumps, obstacles, and turns. Abbreviation: BMX.
  • bighorn mountains — range of the Rocky Mountains in N Wyo. and S Mont.: highest peak, 13,165 ft (4,013 m)
  • bill of adventure — a certificate made out by a merchant to show that goods handled by him and his agents are the property of another party at whose risk the dealing is done
  • bill of attainder — (formerly) a legislative act finding a person guilty without trial of treason or felony and declaring him attainted
  • billeting officer — an officer who is responsible for billeting
  • binary opposition — a relation between the members of a pair of linguistic items, as a pair of distinctive features, such that one is the absence of the other, as voicelessness and voice, or that one is at the opposite pole from the other, as stridency and mellowness.
  • binocular rivalry — the phenomenon whereby one is unable to see simultaneously different images presented one to each eye; usually in some areas of the eye the image presented to the left eye is seen, in others that presented to the right eye
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