14-letter words containing s, o
- basso cantante — a bass voice with an upper range that is more developed than that of the basso profundo.
- basso continuo — continuo.
- basso profundo — (esp in operatic solo singing) a singer with a very deep bass voice
- bastard indigo — a bushy shrub, Amorpha fruticosa, of the legume family, native to North America, having elongated clusters of dull purplish or bluish flowers.
- bastardisation — Alternative form of bastardization.
- bastardization — the act of bastardizing
- battle of wits — If you refer to a situation as a battle of wits, you mean that it involves people with opposing aims who compete with each other using their intelligence, rather than force.
- battle station — the place or position that one is assigned to for battle or in an emergency.
- bay psalm book — a translation of the Psalms by John Eliot and others: the first book published (1640) in America.
- bayes' theorem — the fundamental result which expresses the conditional probability P(E/A) of an event E given an event A as P(A/E).P(E)/P(A); more generally, where En is one of a set of values Ei which partition the sample space, P(En/A) = P(A/En)P(En)/Σ P(A/Ei)P(Ei). This enables prior estimates of probability to be continually revised in the light of observations
- bayonet socket — a socket for a bayonet fitting
- bazillionaires — Plural form of bazillionaire.
- be cut to size — If an object is cut to size, its size is altered to make it suitable for a particular purpose.
- beard-stroking — deep thought
- beaufort scale — an international scale of wind velocities ranging for practical purposes from 0 (calm) to 12 (hurricane force). In the US an extension of the scale, from 13 to 17 for winds over 64 knots, is used
- beauty contest — A beauty contest is a competition in which young women are judged to decide which one is the most beautiful.
- beclomethasone — a potent synthetic corticosteroid, C 28 H 37 ClO 7 , prepared as an inhalant in the treatment of bronchial asthma.
- bedroom suburb — a commuter suburb, from which people travel to the city centre to work
- beggar's opera — a ballad opera (1728) with text by John Gay and music arranged by John Pepusch.
- belaya tserkov — city in WC Ukraine: pop. 204,000
- belisha beacon — a flashing light in an orange globe mounted on a post, indicating a pedestrian crossing on a road
- belvoir castle — a castle in Leicestershire, near Grantham (in Lincolnshire): seat of the Dukes of Rutland; rebuilt by James Wyatt in 1816
- benday process — a process for adding tone or shading, as in reproducing drawings, by the overlay on the plate of patterns, as of dots
- benzosulfimide — saccharin.
- berberidaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Berberidaceae, a mainly N temperate family of flowering plants (mostly shrubs), including barberry and barrenwort
- bermuda shorts — close-fitting shorts that come down to the knees
- bernicle goose — barnacle goose
- beside oneself — If you are beside yourself with anger or excitement, you are extremely angry or excited.
- bet your boots — to be certain; rely on it
- betake oneself — to go; move
- betray oneself — to reveal one's true character, intentions, etc
- beyond dispute — not open to dispute or question; settled
- beyond measure — If you say that something has changed or that it has affected you beyond measure, you are emphasizing that it has done this to a great extent.
- biceps femoris — See under biceps.
- big brotherism — paternalistic authoritarianism that seeks to supply the needs and regulate the conduct of people.
- big house, the — a penitentiary
- bikini bottoms — the part of a bikini worn over the groin
- bildungsromane — a type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist.
- bilious attack — a group of symptoms consisting of headache, abdominal pain, and constipation
- bill of rights — A Bill of Rights is a written list of citizens' rights which is usually part of the constitution of a country.
- billy no-mates — a person with no friends
- binary fission — asexual reproduction in unicellular organisms by division into two daughter cells
- bioaeronautics — the use of aircraft in the discovery, development, and protection of natural and biological resources
- biocybernetics — the branch of cybernetics that deals with the control and communication systems of living organisms
- bioelectronics — a branch of electronics that deals with electronic devices, implants, etc. used in medicine and biological research
- bioinformatics — the branch of information science concerned with large databases of biochemical or pharmaceutical information
- biolinguistics — the study of language functions as they relate to or derive from the biological characteristics of an organism.
- bioluminescent — the production of light by living organisms.
- biomathematics — the study of the application of mathematics to biology
- biometric risk — Biometric risk covers all risks related to human life conditions, such as death, birth, disability, age, and number of children.