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16-letter words containing s, e, c

  • bear one's cross — a structure consisting essentially of an upright and a transverse piece, used to execute persons in ancient times.
  • bearish tendency — a tendency for share prices to fall
  • bessemer process — (formerly) a process for producing steel by blowing air through molten pig iron at about 1250°C in a Bessemer converter: silicon, manganese, and phosphorus impurities are removed and the carbon content is controlled
  • 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.
  • bimetallic strip — a strip consisting of two metals of different coefficients of expansion welded together so that it buckles on heating: used in thermostats, etc
  • bismarck herring — marinaded herring, served cold
  • black nightshade — a poisonous solanaceous plant, Solanum nigrum, a common weed in cultivated land, having small white flowers with backward-curved petals and black berry-like fruits
  • black-eyed susan — any of several North American plants of the genus Rudbeckia, esp R. hirta, having flower heads of orange-yellow rays and brown-black centres: family Asteraceae (composites)
  • block-structured — (language)   Any programming language in which sections of source code contained within pairs of matching delimiters such as "" and "" (e.g. in C) or "begin" and "end" (e.g. Algol) are executed as a single unit. A block of code may be the body of a subroutine or function, or it may be controlled by conditional execution (if statement) or repeated execution (while statement, for statement, etc.). In all but the most primitive block structured languages a variable's scope can be limited to the block in which it is declared. Block-structured languages support structured programming where each block can be written without detailed knowledge of the inner workings of other blocks, thus allowing a top-down design approach. See also abstract data type, module.
  • blow one's cover — to be or serve as a covering for; extend over; rest on the surface of: Snow covered the fields.
  • blow one's stack — to lose one's temper; fly into a rage
  • bob's your uncle — everything is or will turn out all right
  • bordelaise sauce — a dark sauce made from meat stock, flour, wine, onions, seasonings, etc., served over broiled meat
  • border leicester — a breed of sheep originally developed in the border country between Scotland and England by crossing English Leicesters with Cheviots: large numbers in Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand. It has a long white fleece with no wool on the head
  • boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
  • bouches-du-rhone — a department of S central France, in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Capital: Marseille. Pop: 1 883 645 (2003 est). Area: 5284 sq km (2047 sq miles)
  • 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)
  • bragg scattering — the diffraction phenomenon exhibited by a crystal bombarded with x-rays in such a way that each plane of the crystal lattice acts as a reflector (Bragg reflector)
  • braking distance — the distance a vehicle travels from the point at which its brakes are applied to the point at which it comes to a stop
  • branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
  • break one's back — to overwork or work very hard
  • break one's neck — to exert oneself greatly, esp by hurrying, in order to do something
  • breakfast cereal — a type of food made from a cereal plant and commonly eaten at breakfast
  • breast screening — a radiological or other examination of a woman's breasts to check for signs of cancer
  • bring to justice — to capture, try, and usually punish (a criminal, an outlaw, etc)
  • bristlecone pine — a coniferous tree, Pinus aristata, of the western US, bearing cones with bristle-like prickles: one of the longest-lived trees, useful in radiocarbon dating
  • brothel-creepers — soft-soled men's shoes that were originally popular in the 1950s
  • buckley's chance — no chance at all
  • building society — In Britain, a building society is a business which will lend you money when you want to buy a house. You can also invest money in a building society, where it will earn interest. Compare savings and loan association.
  • bullock's oriole — a common oriole, Icterus galbula bullockii, of western North America: a subspecies of the northern oriole.
  • bush honeysuckle — any of several shrubs of the genus Diervilla, of eastern North America, having clusters of yellowish flowers.
  • bush huckleberry — a huckleberry shrub, Gaylussacia dumosa, having sticky, hairy twigs, white or pink flowers, and tasteless but edible black fruit.
  • business account — a bank account or type of bank account used for business transactions rather than personal ones
  • business college — a college providing courses in secretarial studies, business management, accounting, commerce, etc
  • business machine — a machine for expediting clerical work, as a tabulator or adding machine.
  • bust one's chops — Usually, chops. the jaw.
  • buttercup squash — a small, usually dark-green squash that is a variety of Cucurbita maxima, having sweet orange flesh.
  • butterfly scheme — A parallel version of Scheme for the BBN Butterfly computer.
  • cabinet minister — a minister who is a member of the cabinet
  • 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.
  • cadmium sulphide — an orange or yellow insoluble solid used as a pigment in paints, etc (cadmium yellow). Formula: CdS
  • calcium arsenate — a toxic, white powder, Ca3(AsO4)2, used as an insecticide in the form of a spray or dust
  • calcium silicate — any of the silicates of calcium: calcium metasilicate, dicalcium silicate, and tricalcium silicate.
  • calculate a risk — If you calculate a risk, you decide how likely an event is, whether the insurer should underwrite the risk, and at what cost.
  • 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.
  • call to quarters — a bugle call shortly before taps, notifying soldiers to retire to their quarters
  • camomile shampoo — a liquid or cream preparation of soap or detergent with camomile extract to wash the hair
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