15-letter words containing s, i, o
- baptism of fire — If someone who has just begun a new job has a baptism of fire, they immediately have to cope with very many severe difficulties and obstacles.
- barbizon school — a group of French painters of landscapes of the 1840s, including Théodore Rousseau, Daubigny, Diaz, Corot, and Millet
- barn conversion — the adaptation of a farm barn into a building serving a different use, such as a house or commercial premises
- barry mountains — a mountain range in SE Australia, in E Victoria: part of the Australian Alps
- basic autocoder — Early system on IBM 7070. Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959).
- basic education — (in India) education in which all teaching is correlated with the learning of a craft
- basidiomycetous — belonging or pertaining to the basidiomycetes.
- basse-normandie — a region of NW France, on the English Channel: consists of the Cherbourg peninsula in the west rising to the Normandy hills in the east; mainly agricultural
- bathing costume — A bathing costume is a piece of clothing that is worn for swimming, especially by women and girls.
- battle of wills — A battle of wills is a situation that involves people who try to defeat each other by refusing to change their own aims or demands and hoping that their opponents will weaken first.
- battle stations — the places to which soldiers, sailors, warships, etc. are assigned for a battle or an emergency
- be having sb on — If you are having someone on, you are pretending that something is true when it is not true, for example as a joke or in order to tease them.
- be lost without — If you say that you would be lost without someone or something, you mean that you would be unhappy or unable to work properly without them.
- be of two minds — to be undecided or irresolute
- be on the skids — to be on the decline or downgrade; meet with failure
- be spoiling for — to have an aggressive desire for (a fight, etc)
- bear comparison — to be sufficiently similar in class or range to be compared with (something else), esp favourably
- bedford heights — a town in N Ohio.
- bedloe's island — Liberty Island
- bedroom slipper — a soft shoe worn in the house
- belief revision — (artificial intelligence) The area of theory change in which preservation of the information in the theory to be changed plays a key role. A fundamental issue in belief revision is how to decide what information to retract in order to maintain consistency, when the addition of a new belief to a theory would make it inconsistent. Usually, an ordering on the sentences of the theory is used to determine priorities among sentences, so that those with lower priority can be retracted. This ordering can be difficult to generate and maintain. The postulates of the AGM Theory for Belief Revision describe minimal properties a revision process should have.
- benefit society — an organization which, by means of dues, secures for its members certain benefits, such as life insurance, hospitalization, etc.
- bergius process — a method of hydrogenation formerly used with coal to produce an oil similar to petroleum.
- bessel function — one of several transcendental functions, usually represented as power series, that are solutions to a group of related differential equations.
- beta conversion — (theory) A term from lambda-calculus for beta reduction or beta abstraction.
- beurre noisette — a sauce of butter cooked until golden or nut brown, sometimes flavored with capers, vinegar, herbs, etc.
- beyond question — a sentence in an interrogative form, addressed to someone in order to get information in reply.
- bide one's time — to wait patiently for an opportunity
- billings method — a natural method of birth control that involves examining the colour and viscosity of the cervical mucus to discover when ovulation is occurring
- binomial series — an infinite series obtained by expanding a binomial raised to a power that is not a positive integer.
- bioastronautics — the study of the effects of space flight on living organisms
- biodestructible — biodegradable
- biogasification — the conversion of organic matter into biogas.
- biogeochemistry — the science of biological, chemical, and geological aspects of the environment
- bioluminescence — the production of light by living organisms as a result of the oxidation of a light-producing substance (luciferin) by the enzyme luciferase: occurs in many marine organisms, insects such as the firefly, etc
- biopsychologist — a field of psychology that deals with the effects of biological factors on behavior.
- biostatistician — someone who studies or works professionally in the field of biostatistics
- biostratigraphy — the examination of the ages of rock strata by using fossils
- biot-savart law — the law that the magnetic induction near a long, straight conductor, as wire, varies inversely as the distance from the conductor and directly as the intensity of the current in the conductor.
- bird of passage — If you refer to someone as a bird of passage, you mean that they are staying in a place for a short time before going to another place.
- biscuit tortoni — an individual portion of tortoni, frozen and served in a small cup, often topped with ground almonds.
- bishop auckland — a town in N England, in central Durham: seat of the bishops of Durham since the 12th century: light industries. Pop: 24 764 (2001)
- bit on the side — an extramarital affair
- biting housefly — a two-winged fly, Stomoxys calcitrans, having the mouthparts adapted for biting, and commonly a household and stable pest.
- bits per second — (communications, unit) (bps, b/s) The unit in which data rate is measured. For example, a modem's data rate is usually measured in kilobits per second. In 1996, the maximum modem speed for use on the PSTN was 33.6 kbps, rising to 56 kbps in 1997. Note that kilo- (k), mega- (M), etc. in data rates denote powers of 1000, not 1024.
- bituminous coal — a soft black coal, rich in volatile hydrocarbons, that burns with a smoky yellow flame. Fixed carbon content: 46–86 per cent; calorific value: 1.93 × 107 – 3.63 × 107 J/kg
- black mountains — a mountain range running from N Monmouthshire and SE Powys (Wales) to SW Herefordshire (England). Highest peak: Waun Fach, 811 m (2660 ft)
- blast injection — the injection of liquid fuel directly into the cylinder of an internal-combustion engine using a blast of high-pressure air to atomize the spray of fuel
- blasting powder — a form of gunpowder made with sodium nitrate instead of saltpeter, used chiefly for blasting rock, ore, etc.
- blood poisoning — Blood poisoning is a serious illness resulting from an infection in your blood.