18-letter words containing s, o, b
- knotted cranesbill — a British wildflower, Geranium nodosum, an meadow geranium with bright pink or purple flowers
- known lazy bastard — (abuse) (KLB) A term, used among technical support staff, for a user who repeatedly asks for help with problems whose solutions are clearly explained in the documentation, and persists in doing so after having been told to RTFM. KLBs are singled out for special treatment (i.e. ridicule), especially if they have been heard to say "It's so boring to read the manual! Why don't you just tell me?". The deepest pit in Hell is reserved for KLBs whose questions reveal total ignorance of the basic concepts (e.g., "How do I make a font in Excel?", "Where do I turn on my RAM?"), and who refuse to accept that their questions are neither simple nor well-formed.
- lambda abstraction — A term in lambda-calculus denoting a function. A lambda abstraction begins with a lower-case lambda (represented as "\" in this document), followed by a variable name (the "bound variable"), a full stop and a lambda expression (the body). The body is taken to extend as far to the right as possible so, for example an expression, \ x . \ y . x+y is read as \ x . (\ y . x+y). A nested abstraction such as this is often abbreviated to: \ x y . x + y The lambda expression (\ v . E) denotes a function which takes an argument and returns the term E with all free occurrences of v replaced by the actual argument. Application is represented by juxtaposition so (\ x . x) 42 represents the identity function applied to the constant 42. A lambda abstraction in Lisp is written as the symbol lambda, a list of zero or more variable names and a list of zero or more terms, e.g. (lambda (x y) (plus x y)) Lambda expressions in Haskell are written as a backslash, "\", one or more patterns (e.g. variable names), "->" and an expression, e.g. \ x -> x.
- last but not least — lastly
- lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
- liquid distributor — A liquid distributor is a device which is used to spread liquid when it enters a packed column (= a tall vessel with packing, used for separating substances).
- live by one's wits — the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure. Synonyms: drollery, facetiousness, waggishness, repartee.
- logically possible — capable of being described without self-contradiction
- lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
- loschmidt's number — the number of molecules in one cubic centimeter of an ideal gas at standard temperature and pressure, equal to 2.687 × 10 19.
- lose one's marbles — If you say that someone has lost their marbles, you mean that their ideas or behaviour are very strange, as if they have become insane.
- love-lies-bleeding — an amaranth, especially Amaranthus caudatus, having spikes of crimson flowers.
- low blood pressure — hypotension.
- lowell observatory — the astronomical observatory, situated in Flagstaff, Arizona, at which Pluto was discovered in 1930.
- lubber grasshopper — plains grasshopper.
- macroinvertebrates — Plural form of macroinvertebrate.
- master boot record — (operating system, storage) A special area on a computer's main hard disk that gives the location of the disk's boot block or bootable partition where the operating system is installed.
- member of congress — law: elected representative
- membrane transport — the process by which physiologically important substances, such as calcium ions, sugars, etc, are conveyed across a biological membrane
- metabolic syndrome — Pathology. a group of medical conditions present simultaneously in a patient, as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, and an excess of abdominal fat, that increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Also called insulin resistance syndrome.
- microinvertebrates — Plural form of microinvertebrate.
- mobile data system — a system consisting of a client computer requesting information and a server supplying this information
- mohammed ibn-kasim — flourished early 8th century a.d, Muslim conqueror of the Sind region in India.
- money is no object — If you say that money is no object or distance is no object, you are emphasizing that you are willing or able to spend as much money as necessary or travel whatever distance is required.
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- nebular hypothesis — the theory that the solar system evolved from a mass of nebular matter: prominent in the 19th century following its precise formulation by Laplace.
- non-responsibility — the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one's power, control, or management.
- non-understandable — capable of being understood; comprehensible.
- north bedfordshire — a city in Bedfordshire, in central England.
- northeast by north — a point on the compass 11°15′ north of northeast. Abbreviation: NEbN.
- northwest by north — a point on the compass, 11°15′ north of northwest. Abbreviation: NWbN.
- not be one's scene — If you say that an activity or place is not your scene, you mean that you do not like it or enjoy it.
- not by a long shot — absolutely not
- notifiable disease — any one of a number of infectious diseases of humans and animals, that must be reported to the public health authorities
- objective idealism — a form of idealism asserting that the act of experiencing has a reality combining and transcending the natures of the object experienced and of the mind of the observer.
- oblique-slip fault — a fault on which the movement is along both the strike and the dip of the fault
- on one's beam-ends — out of resources; destitute
- one of sb's number — One of your number is a member of your group.
- one's heart bleeds — used to express sympathetic grief, but often used ironically
- one's number is up — one is finished; one is ruined or about to die
- open pandora's box — If someone or something opens Pandora's box or opens a Pandora's box, they do something that causes a lot of problems to appear that did not exist or were not known about before.
- oriental alabaster — alabaster (def 2).
- passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
- personal bodyguard — a person employed to protect a particular person
- petite bourgeoisie — the portion of the bourgeoisie having the least wealth and lowest social status; the lower middle class.
- prepositional verb — a combination of verb and preposition, often with idiomatic meaning, differing from other phrasal verbs in that an object must always follow the preposition, as take after in The children take after their mother.
- price on sb's head — If there is a price on someone 's head, an amount of money has been offered for the capture or killing of that person.
- productivity bonus — an extra payment made to workers for being more productive or yielding more favourable results than normal
- prometheus unbound — a drama in verse (1820) by Shelley.
- protease inhibitor — a drug that inhibits the action of protease, especially any of a class of antiviral drugs that prevent the cleavage and replication of HIV proteins.