15-letter words containing s, e, r, u
- bulimia nervosa — a disorder characterized by compulsive overeating followed by vomiting: sometimes associated with anxiety about gaining weight
- bullnose header — bull header (def 1).
- bullnose-header — Also called bullnose header. a brick having one of the edges across its width rounded for laying as a header in a sill or the like.
- bullock's heart — the large, edible fruit of a tropical American tree, Annona reticulata.
- bullock's-heart — the large, edible fruit of a tropical American tree, Annona reticulata.
- bureau of mines — a division of the Department of the Interior, created in 1910, that studies the nation's mineral resources and inspects mines.
- buried treasure — A surprising piece of code found in some program. While usually not wrong, it tends to vary from crufty to bletcherous, and has lain undiscovered only because it was functionally correct, however horrible it is. Used sarcastically, because what is found is anything *but* treasure. Buried treasure almost always needs to be dug up and removed. "I just found that the scheduler sorts its queue using bubble sort! Buried treasure!"
- bury st edmunds — a market town in E England, in Suffolk. Pop: 36 218 (2001)
- business center — A business center is a room in a hotel with facilities such as computers and a fax machine, that allows guests to work while they are staying at the hotel.
- business centre — a place providing office facilities and services
- business person — Business people are people who work in business.
- butcher's-broom — a liliaceous evergreen shrub, Ruscus aculeatus, that has stiff prickle-tipped flattened green stems, which resemble and function as true leaves. The plant was formerly used for making brooms
- butler's pantry — a pantry in a large house where crockery, glassware, cutlery, etc is kept
- butter spreader — a small knife with a wide, flat blade, as for spreading butter on bread or rolls.
- butter-and-eggs — any of various plants, such as toadflax, the flowers of which are of two shades of yellow
- buttress thread — a screw thread having one flank that is vertical while the other is inclined, and a flat top and bottom: used in machine tools and designed to withstand heavy thrust in one direction
- cactus geranium — a plant, Pelargonium echinatum, of the geranium family, native to southern Africa, having prickly stipules and white or reddish flowers.
- calcareous clay — soil with high limestone content
- calcareous tufa — tufa
- calculated risk — a chance of failure, the probability of which is estimated before some action is undertaken.
- camelback truss — a roof truss having upper and lower chords curving upward from a common point at each side.
- camp counsellor — an adult supervisor assigned to a group of campers at a summer camp
- caprifoliaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Caprifoliaceae, a family of N temperate shrubs, small trees, and climbers including honeysuckle, elder, and guelder-rose
- carnivorousness — flesh-eating: A dog is a carnivorous animal.
- carpometacarpus — a bone in the wing of a bird that consists of the metacarpal bones and some of the carpal bones fused together
- cartesian doubt — willful suspension of all interpretations of experience that are not absolutely certain: used as a method of deriving, by elimination of such uncertainties, axioms upon which to base theories.
- casters-up mode — [IBM, probably from slang belly up] Yet another synonym for "broken" or "down". Usually connotes a major failure. A system (hardware or software) which is "down" may be already being restarted before the failure is noticed, whereas one which is "casters up" is usually a good excuse to take the rest of the day off (as long as you're not responsible for fixing it).
- casual labourer — a person who is employed on a temporary, rather than a permanent or regular basis
- caustic surface — a surface that envelopes the light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface
- cell disruption — Cell disruption is when a biological material becomes smaller to release proteins and enzymes.
- central sudanic — a group of languages belonging to the Nilo-Saharan family, spoken in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, northern Uganda, southern Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic, and including Mangbetu.
- cerebrovascular — of or relating to the blood vessels and the blood supply of the brain
- ceremoniousness — The state of being ceremonious.
- cervical plexus — a network of nerves branching from the spinal nerves of the neck region and innervating the neck, chest, diaphragm, and part of the face.
- ceteris paribus — other things being equal
- chamber counsel — a counsel who advises in private and does not plead in court
- channel surfing — to change from one channel on a television set to another with great or unusual frequency, especially by using a remote control.
- channel-surfing — Channel-surfing is the same as channel-hopping.
- character study — a work of fiction in which the delineation of the central character's personality is more important than the plot.
- charles coulomb — Charles Augustin de [sharl oh-gy-stan duh] /ʃarl oʊ güˈstɛ̃ də/ (Show IPA), 1736–1806, French physicist and inventor.
- charles doughty — Charles Montagu [mon-tuh-gyoo] /ˈmɒn təˌgyu/ (Show IPA), 1843–1926, English traveler and writer.
- charlotte russe — a cold dessert made in a mould with sponge fingers enclosing a mixture of whipped cream, custard, etc
- chemoautotrophs — Plural form of chemoautotroph.
- chi-square test — a test derived from the chi-square distribution to compare the goodness of fit of theoretical and observed frequency distributions or to compare nominal data derived from unmatched groups of subjects
- children's hour — a play (1934) by Lillian Hellman.
- chinese juniper — a shrub or tree, Juniperus chinensis, of China, Mongolia, and Japan, having scalelike leaves and small, round, purplish-brown fruit.
- chinese lacquer — lacquer (def 2).
- chinese mustard — brown mustard.
- chudskoye ozero — Russian name of Peipus.
- church register — parish register.