16-letter words containing s, a, n, o
- be one's own man — to be independent or free
- bear one's cross — a structure consisting essentially of an upright and a transverse piece, used to execute persons in ancient times.
- behavioural sink — a small area in which people or animals live in overcrowded conditions
- belgian malinois — one of a Belgian breed of medium-sized dogs having a short coat, tan to dark brown in color, a black mask, and erect ears, bred originally as a sheepherding dog.
- belgian sheepdog — any of a Belgian breed of large herding dog with a black coat, sometimes used as a guide dog
- bells of ireland — an annual garden plant, Moluccella laevis, whose flowers have a green cup-shaped calyx: family Lamiaceae (labiates)
- benoit samuelson — Joan (Joan Benoit) born 1957, U.S. distance runner: first Olympic marathon women's winner, 1984.
- benzoate of soda — sodium benzoate
- beta abstraction — [lambda-calculus] The conversion of an expression to an application of a lambda abstraction to an argument expression. Some subterm of the original expression becomes the argument of the abstraction and the rest becomes its body. E.g. 4+1 --> (\ x . x+1) 4 The opposite of beta abstraction is beta reduction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion.
- bicapitalisation — The act said to have been performed on trademarks (such as PostScript, NeXT, NeWS, VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalisation. Too many marketroid types think this sort of thing is really cute, even the 2,317th time they do it. Compare studlycaps.
- bihar and orissa — a former province of NE India: now divided into the states of Bihar and Odisha (formerly Orissa).
- binocular fusion — fusion (def 5a).
- binocular-fusion — the act or process of fusing; the state of being fused.
- birthday honours — (in Britain) honorary titles conferred on the official birthday of the sovereign
- bite one's nails — to chew off the ends of one's fingernails
- blow one's stack — to lose one's temper; fly into a rage
- bluegrass region — a region in central Kentucky, famous for its horse farms and fields of bluegrass.
- board of pardons — an agency that determines which prisoners are to be released on parole or discretionary mandatory supervision and recommends pardons
- boarding kennels — a place where dog owners can pay to have their dogs looked after while they are away
- boatswain's mate — a job classification in the US navy
- boatswain's pipe — a whistle used formerly to give orders on board ship
- bonded warehouse — a warehouse in which dutiable goods are deposited until duty is paid or the goods are cleared for export
- bonneville flats — an area of salt flats in the W part of Great Salt Lake Desert, in NW Utah: site of automobile speed tests.
- bornholm disease — an epidemic virus infection characterized by pain round the base of the chest
- boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
- boston tea party — a raid in 1773 made by citizens of Boston (disguised as Indians) on three British ships in the harbour as a protest against taxes on tea and the monopoly given to the East India Company. The contents of several hundred chests of tea were dumped into the harbour
- boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
- bowman's capsule — a membranous, double-walled capsule surrounding a glomerulus of a nephron.
- bracknell forest — a unitary authority in SE England, in E Berkshire. Pop: 110 100 (2003 est). Area: 109 sq km (42 sq miles)
- branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
- break one's back — to overwork or work very hard
- break one's fast — to eat food for the first time after fasting, or for the first time in the day
- break one's neck — to exert oneself greatly, esp by hurrying, in order to do something
- break one's word — to fail to keep one's promise
- british honduras — Belize
- british longhair — a breed of large cat with a semi-long thick soft coat
- bronchial asthma — asthma.
- brown-eyed susan — a composite plant, Rudbeckia triloba, of the southeastern U.S., having a single flower with yellow rays darkening to an orange orbrown at the base and a brownish-black disk.
- bundled software — software sold as part of a package with computers or other hardware or software
- business account — a bank account or type of bank account used for business transactions rather than personal ones
- busman's holiday — If you have a holiday, but spend it doing something similar to your usual work, you can refer to it as a busman's holiday.
- button snakeroot — blazing star (sense 1)
- bypass operation — an operation involving redirection of blood flow, either to avoid a diseased blood vessel or in order to perform heart surgery
- cable television — Cable television is a television system in which signals are sent along wires rather than by radio waves.
- cache on a stick — (architecture) (COAST) Intel Corporation attempt to's standardise the modular L2 cache subsystem in Pentium-based computers. A COAST module should be about 4.35" wide by 1.14" high. According to earlier specifications from Motorola, a module between 4.33" and 4.36" wide, and between 1.12" and 1.16" high is within the COAST standard. Some module vendors, including some major motherboard suppliers, greatly violate the height specification. Another COAST specification violated by many suppliers concerns clock distribution in synchronous modules. The specification requires that the clock tree to each synchronous chip be balanced, i.e. equal length from edge of the connector to individual chips. An unbalanced clock tree increases reflections and noise. For a 256 kilobyte cache module the standard requires the same clock be used for both chips but some vendors use separate clocks to reduce loading on the clock driver and hence increase the clock speed. However, this creates unbalanced loading in other motherboard configurations, such as motherboards with soldered caches in the system.
- call in question — a sentence in an interrogative form, addressed to someone in order to get information in reply.
- call one's shots — a discharge of a firearm, bow, etc.
- canadian soldier — the mayfly.
- cannonball serve — (in tennis) a very fast low serve
- cantankerousness — disagreeable to deal with; contentious; peevish: a cantankerous, argumentative man.