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20-letter words containing s, o, l, e, a

  • benztropine mesylate — a synthetic anticholinergic, C 21 H 25 NO⋅CH 4 O 3 S, used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.
  • benzyl isoamyl ether — a colorless liquid, C 12 H 18 O, used in soap perfumes.
  • biological diversity — Biological diversity is the same as biodiversity.
  • bismarck archipelago — a group of over 200 islands in the SW Pacific, northeast of New Guinea: part of Papua New Guinea. Main islands: New Britain, New Ireland, Lavongai, and the Admiralty Islands. Chief town: Rabaul, on New Britain. Pop: 566 610 (2000). Area: 49 658 sq km (19 173 sq miles)
  • blood on one's hands — If you say that someone has a person's blood on their hands, you mean that they are responsible for that person's death.
  • blow up in sb's face — If something that you have planned blows up in your face, it goes wrong unexpectedly, with the result that you suffer.
  • blue ridge mountains — a mountain range in the eastern US, extending from West Virginia into Georgia: part of the Appalachian mountains. Highest peak: Mount Mitchell, 2038 m (6684 ft)
  • blue screen of death — (humour)   (BSOD) The infamous white-on-blue text screen which appears when Microsoft Windows crashes. BSOD is mostly seen on the 16-bit systems such as Windows 3.1, but also on Windows 95 and apparently even under Windows NT 4. It is most likely to be caused by a GPF, although Windows 95 can do it if you've removed a required CD-ROM from the drive. It is often impossible to recover cleanly from a BSOD. The acronym BSOD is sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "Windoze just keeps BSODing on me today".
  • bomb disposal expert — an expert in bomb disposal
  • bone mineral density — a measurement of the amount of calcium and other minerals in a segment of bone, a higher mineral content indicating a higher bone density and strength, used to detect osteoporosis or monitor its treatment.
  • bouvier des flandres — any of a breed of large, strong dog with a rough, wiry coat and pointed, erect ears
  • breakerless ignition — electronic ignition.
  • breakfast television — Breakfast television refers to television programmes which are broadcast in the morning at the time when most people are having breakfast.
  • brittle bone disease — bone disorder
  • brown lung (disease) — a chronic disease of the lungs caused by inhalation of fine textile fibers, esp. cotton; byssinosis
  • caesar and cleopatra — a comedy (1898) by G. B. Shaw.
  • calculus of pleasure — (in utilitarianism) appraisal of possible alternative choices in terms of the amount of pleasure to be gained and pain to be avoided in each.
  • call someone's bluff — to challenge someone to give proof of his claims
  • cancel a reservation — If you cancel a reservation, you stop it because someone who has booked a room has informed you that they no longer wish to stay there.
  • canine leptospirosis — an often fatal intestinal disease in dogs, caused by any of several spirochetes of the genus Leptospira.
  • capacitive crosstalk — Capacitive crosstalk is a situation in which a signal on one line can cause a smaller version of the same signal on an adjacent line because of the capacitance between the lines.
  • cape prince of wales — a cape in W Alaska, on the Bering Strait opposite the coast of the extreme northeast of Russia: the westernmost point of North America
  • card up one's sleeve — a plan or resource kept secret or held in reserve
  • cassegrain telescope — an astronomical reflecting telescope in which incident light is reflected from a large concave paraboloid mirror onto a smaller convex hyperboloid mirror and then back through a hole in the concave mirror to form the image
  • cast a pall over sth — If something unpleasant casts a pall over an event or occasion, it makes it less enjoyable than it should be.
  • catastrophic failure — Catastrophic failure is sudden and complete failure which cannot be put right.
  • catastrophic illness — A catastrophic illness is a major health event that takes place during a particular period of time, such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
  • celestial navigation — navigation by observation of the positions of the stars
  • cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
  • cellulose triacetate — a triacetic ester of cellulose characterized by its resistance to most solvents, used chiefly in the manufacture of textile fibers.
  • central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
  • châlons-en-champagne — a town in NE France, on the River Marne: scene of Attila's defeat by the Romans (451 ad). Pop: 47 339 (1999)
  • chebyshev polynomial — a polynomial solution of the Tchebycheff equation, of the form T n (x) = cos(n cos −1 x), where n is an integer.
  • checkbook journalism — the practice of paying for a news story or an interview, or for exclusive broadcasting or publishing rights.
  • chemolithoautotrophs — Plural form of chemolithoautotroph.
  • child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
  • childhood sweetheart — a boyfriend or girlfriend from an early stage of life
  • chinese scholar tree — a spreading, round-headed tree, Sophora japonica, of the legume family, native to China and Korea, having yellowish-white flowers in loose, showy clusters, grown widely as a street tree.
  • cholestyramine resin — a powdery synthetic resin that binds with and prevents the reabsorption of bile acids, used to reduce cholesterol levels, relieve itching associated with jaundice, etc.
  • clay-colored sparrow — a sparrow, Spizella pallida, of the interior of North America, having buff, brown, and white plumage with a pale-gray breast.
  • clay-pigeon shooting — the activity of shooting clay pigeons
  • clothes manufacturer — a business concern that manufactures clothes
  • cocktail shaker sort — (algorithm)   A bi-directional bubble sort. Passes alternate between ascending through array indexes, pushing the largest item to the bottom; and descending through array indexes, pushing the smallest item to the top.
  • college of cardinals — the collective body of cardinals having the function of electing and advising the pope
  • collegiate institute — (in certain provinces) a large secondary school with an academic, rather than vocational, emphasis
  • colloidal suspension — a mixture having particles of one component, with diameters between 10 −7 and 10 −9 metres, suspended in a continuous phase of another component. The mixture has properties between those of a solution and a fine suspension
  • colorado blue spruce — blue spruce.
  • common-sense realism — naive realism.
  • commonwealth hackish — (jargon)   Hacker jargon as spoken outside the US, especially in the British Commonwealth. It is reported that Commonwealth speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like "char" and "soc", etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/. Dots in newsgroup names (especially two-component names) tend to be pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot wib'l/ rather than /sohsh wib'l/). The prefix meta may be pronounced /mee't*/; similarly, Greek letter beta is usually /bee't*/, zeta is usually /zee't*/, and so forth. Preferred metasyntactic variables include blurgle, "eek", "ook", "frodo", and "bilbo"; "wibble", "wobble", and in emergencies "wubble"; "banana", "tom", "dick", "harry", "wombat", "frog", fish, and so on and on (see foo). Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes "-o-rama", "frenzy" (as in feeding frenzy), and "city" (examples: "barf city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!"). Finally, note that the American terms "parens", "brackets", and "braces" for (), [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers "brackets", "square brackets", and "curly brackets". Also, the use of "pling" for bang is common outside the United States. See also attoparsec, calculator, chemist, console jockey, fish, go-faster stripes, grunge, hakspek, heavy metal, leaky heap, lord high fixer, loose bytes, muddie, nadger, noddy, psychedelicware, plingnet, raster blaster, RTBM, seggie, spod, sun lounge, terminal junkie, tick-list features, weeble, weasel, YABA, and notes or definitions under Bad Thing, barf, bum, chase pointers, cosmic rays, crippleware, crunch, dodgy, gonk, hamster, hardwarily, mess-dos, nibble, proglet, root, SEX, tweak and xyzzy.
  • compartmentalisation — Alternative form of compartmentalization.
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