13-letter words containing r, u
- backing group — a group of musicians providing an instrumental or vocal accompaniment for a pop singer
- balsam spruce — either of two North American coniferous trees of the genus Picea, P. pungens (the blue spruce) or P. engelmanni
- balsamiferous — yielding or producing balsam
- baluster stem — a stem of a drinking glass or the like having a gradual swelling near the top or bottom.
- banbury tarts — small baked pastries filled with raisins, currants, etc.
- bancassurance — the selling of insurance products by a bank to its customers
- band spectrum — a spectrum consisting of a number of bands of closely spaced lines that are associated with emission or absorption of radiation by molecules
- banded purple — any color having components of both red and blue, such as lavender, especially one deep in tone.
- banking hours — the hours during which a bank is open for business
- bankrupt worm — a roundworm (genus Trichostrongylus) that is an intestinal parasite of birds and mammals, especially devastating to young livestock.
- barbarousness — The state or quality of being barbarous.
- barcoo salute — a movement of the hand to brush flies away from the face
- barium yellow — a yellow, crystalline compound, BaCrO 4 , used as a pigment (barium yellow)
- baroque organ — a pipe organ dating from or built to the specifications of the baroque period at the time of J. S. Bach.
- barosinusitis — aerosinusitis.
- barrel cactus — any of several large, cylindrical, ribbed, spiny cacti of the genera Echinocactus and Ferocactus.
- barrier-nurse — to tend (infectious patients) in isolation, to prevent the spread of infection
- baryon number — the number of baryons in a system minus the number of antibaryons
- bathtub curve — Common term for the curve (resembling an end-to-end section of one of those claw-footed antique bathtubs) that describes the expected failure rate of electronics with time: initially high, dropping to near 0 for most of the system's lifetime, then rising again as it "tires out". See also burn-in period, infant mortality.
- bathurst burr — an Australian plant, Xanthium spinosum, having numerous hooked burrs that became entangled in sheep's wool
- battlecruiser — A large warship of a type built in the early 20th century, carrying similar armament to a battleship but faster and more lightly armored.
- battlegrounds — Plural form of battleground.
- bbn butterfly — (computer) A supercomputer developed at BBN Technologies, named after the "butterfly" multi-stage switching network around which it was built. It could have up to 512 CPUs connected to allow every CPU access to every other CPU's memory, albeit with about 15 times the latency than for its own. The earlier GP-1000 models used up to 256 Motorola 68020s. The later TC-2000 models used up to 512 Motorola 88100s. Language developed for, or ported to, the BBN Butterfly were Butterfly Common LISP, Butterfly Scheme, Delirium, and MultiScheme.
- bearer cheque — a cheque payable to the person who has it
- beat the drum — a musical percussion instrument consisting of a hollow, usually cylindrical, body covered at one or both ends with a tightly stretched membrane, or head, which is struck with the hand, a stick, or a pair of sticks, and typically produces a booming, tapping, or hollow sound.
- beau brummell — any dandy or fop
- beauty editor — the person in charge of a section of newspaper or magazine devoted to cosmetics, etc
- beauty parlor — A beauty parlor is a place where women can go to have beauty treatments, for example, to have their hair, nails, or makeup done.
- beaux esprits — bel esprit
- beaux-esprits — plural of bel-esprit.
- bedroom suite — a set of furniture, including such things as a bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers, cabinet, etc
- beehive round — an artillery shell that ejects thousands of naillike metal projectiles on exploding.
- behaviourally — from a behavioural point of view
- beleaguerment — a blockade or siege
- bell purchase — a tackle consisting of two standing single blocks, two running single blocks, a fall, and a runner, so arranged that it gives a mechanical advantage of six, neglecting friction.
- benefit fraud — the illegal activity of claiming benefit payments which a person is not entitled to
- benito juarez — Benito (Pablo) [be-nee-taw pah-vlaw] /bɛˈni tɔ ˈpɑ vlɔ/ (Show IPA), 1806–72, president of Mexico 1857–72.
- benzoyl group — the univalent group C 7 H 5 O–, derived from benzoic acid.
- berkeley unix — Berkeley Software Distribution
- bermuda grass — a widely distributed grass, Cynodon dactylon, with wiry creeping rootstocks and several purplish spikes of flowers arising from a single point: used for lawns, pasturage, binding sand dunes, etc
- bermuda onion — a large white or yellow onion with a mild flavor, grown in Texas, California, etc.
- bernoulli box — (storage) A high capacity storage device, Iomega Corporation's first popular product, that spins a mylar disk over a read-write head using the Bernoulli principle.
- beyond number — too numerous to be counted
- bible-thumper — an enthusiastic or aggressive exponent of the Bible
- bibliolatrous — characterized by bibliolatry
- biculturalism — the characteristics, or policy, of a two-cultured society
- bildungsroman — a novel concerned with a person's formative years and development
- bimolecularly — in a bimolecular fashion
- binary number — a number expressed in binary notation, as 1101.101 = 1 × 23 + 1 × 22 + 0 × 21 + 1 × 20 + 1 × 2–1 + 0 × 2–2 + 1 × 2–3 = 13 5⁄8
- binary pulsar — a pulsar in a binary system.