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16-letter words containing s, o, u

  • at one's leisure — when one has free time
  • atomic mass unit — a unit of mass used to express atomic and molecular weights that is equal to one twelfth of the mass of an atom of carbon-12. It is equivalent to 1.66 × 10–27 kg
  • atomic structure — the concept of an atom as a central positively charged nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons surrounded by a number of electrons. The number of electrons is equal to the number of protons: the whole entity is thus electrically neutral
  • audiovisual aids — training or educational materials directed at both the sense of hearing and the sense of sight; films, recordings, photographs, etc., used in classroom instruction, library collections, or the like.
  • auditory aphasia — aphasia in which there is no comprehension of spoken words; word deafness.
  • auditory vesicle — the pouch that is formed by the invagination of an ectodermal placode and that develops into the internal ear.
  • aulnay-sous-bois — a town in N central France, a suburb NE of Paris.
  • aurora australis — the aurora seen around the South Pole
  • australopithecus — an extinct genus of small-brained,large-toothed bipedal hominids that lived in Africa between one and four million years ago.
  • austro-hungarian — of or relating to the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918)
  • authoritarianism — Authoritarianism is the state of being authoritarian or the belief that people with power, especially the State, have the right to control other people's actions.
  • autofluorescence — (biology, microscopy) Self-induced fluorescence.
  • automatic pistol — a type of pistol having a mechanism that throws out the empty shell, puts in a new one, and prepares the pistol to be fired again.
  • autoregressively — In an autoregressive manner.
  • autostereoscopic — Of or pertaining to autostereoscopy.
  • autotransformers — Plural form of autotransformer.
  • autotransfusions — Plural form of autotransfusion.
  • avalon peninsula — a large peninsula of Newfoundland, between Trinity and Placentia Bays. Area: about 10 000 sq km (4000 sq miles)
  • azuero peninsula — a peninsula in SW Panama, bordered on the E by the Gulf of Panama.
  • background music — music of any kind that is played while some other activity is going on, so that people do not actively attend to it
  • background noise — any type of noise that is not the sound that you are specifically listening to or monitoring
  • backus-naur form — (language, grammar)   (BNF, originally "Backus Normal Form") A formal metasyntax used to express context-free grammars. Backus Normal Form was renamed Backus-Naur Form at the suggestion of Donald Knuth. BNF is one of the most commonly used metasyntactic notations for specifying the syntax of programming languages, command sets, and the like. It is widely used for language descriptions but seldom documented anywhere (how do you document a metasyntax?), so that it must usually be learned by osmosis (but see RFC 2234). Consider this BNF for a US postal address: ::= ::= | "." ::= [] | ::= [] ::= "," This translates into English as: "A postal-address consists of a name-part, followed by a street-address part, followed by a zip-code part. A personal-part consists of either a first name or an initial followed by a dot. A name-part consists of either: a personal-part followed by a last name followed by an optional "jr-part" (Jr., Sr., or dynastic number) and end-of-line, or a personal part followed by a name part (this rule illustrates the use of recursion in BNFs, covering the case of people who use multiple first and middle names and/or initials). A street address consists of an optional apartment specifier, followed by a street number, followed by a street name. A zip-part consists of a town-name, followed by a comma, followed by a state code, followed by a ZIP-code followed by an end-of-line." Note that many things (such as the format of a personal-part, apartment specifier, or ZIP-code) are left unspecified. These lexical details are presumed to be obvious from context or specified somewhere nearby. There are many variants and extensions of BNF, possibly containing some or all of the regexp wild cards such as "*" or "+". EBNF is a common one. In fact the example above isn't the pure form invented for the ALGOL 60 report. "[]" was introduced a few years later in IBM's PL/I definition but is now universally recognised. ABNF is another extension.
  • balkan mountains — a mountain range extending across Bulgaria from the Black Sea to the eastern border. Highest peak: Mount Botev, 2376 m (7793 ft)
  • barbecue stopper — a controversial current-affairs issue
  • baron tweedsmuir — the title of Scottish novelist John Buchan
  • bartholomeu dias — Bartholomeu [bahr-too-loo-me-oo] /ˌbɑr tʊ lʊˈmɛ ʊ/ (Show IPA), c1450–1500, Portuguese navigator: discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope.
  • basic vocabulary — the set of lexical items in a language that are most resistant to replacement, referring to the most common and universal elements of human experience, such as parts of the body (foot, eye), universal features of the environment (water, star), common activities (eat, sleep), and the lowest numerals.
  • basque provinces — an autonomous region of N Spain, comprising the provinces of Álava, Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya: inhabited mainly by Basques, who retained virtual autonomy from the 9th to the 19th century. Pop: 1 840 700 (2003 est). Area: about 7250 sq km (2800 sq miles)
  • be in one's cups — If someone is in their cups, they are drunk.
  • beg the question — If you say that something begs a particular question, you mean that it makes people want to ask that question; some people consider that this use is incorrect.
  • behavioural sink — a small area in which people or animals live in overcrowded conditions
  • benito mussolini — Benito [buh-nee-toh;; Italian be-nee-taw] /bəˈni toʊ;; Italian bɛˈni tɔ/ (Show IPA), (I"Il Duce") 1883–1945, Italian Fascist leader: premier of Italy 1922–43.
  • benoit samuelson — Joan (Joan Benoit) born 1957, U.S. distance runner: first Olympic marathon women's winner, 1984.
  • binocular fusion — fusion (def 5a).
  • binocular-fusion — the act or process of fusing; the state of being fused.
  • bird's-nest soup — a rich spicy Chinese soup made from the outer part of the nests of SE Asian swifts of the genus Collocalia
  • birthday honours — (in Britain) honorary titles conferred on the official birthday of the sovereign
  • 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.
  • blood substitute — a substance such as plasma, albumin, or dextran, used to replace lost blood or increase the blood volume
  • bloomsbury group — a group of writers, artists, and intellectuals living and working in and around Bloomsbury in London from about 1907 to 1930. Influenced by the philosophy of G. E. Moore, they included Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Clive and Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry, E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and John Maynard Keynes
  • bluegrass region — a region in central Kentucky, famous for its horse farms and fields of bluegrass.
  • bob's your uncle — everything is or will turn out all right
  • bodily functions — physical processes such as urination and defecation
  • bois de boulogne — a large park in W Paris, formerly a forest: includes the racecourses of Auteuil and Longchamp
  • bonded warehouse — a warehouse in which dutiable goods are deposited until duty is paid or the goods are cleared for export
  • book of business — A company's or agent's book of business is the total of all insurance accounts written by them.
  • bordelaise sauce — a dark sauce made from meat stock, flour, wine, onions, seasonings, etc., served over broiled meat
  • 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)
  • boulogne-sur-mer — a port in N France, on the English Channel. Pop: 44 859 (1999)
  • boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
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