15-letter words containing s, o
- aviator glasses — sunglasses that look like goggles
- azobisformamide — (chemistry) azodicarbonamide.
- backup software — (tool, software) Software for doing a backup, often included as part of the operating system. Backup software should provide ways to specify what files get backed up and to where. It may include its own scheduling function to automate the procedure or, preferably, work with generic scheduling facilities. It may include facilities for managing the backup media (e.g. maintaining an index of tapes) and for restoring files from backups. Examples are Unix's dump command and Windows's ntbackup.
- bacterial ghost — a bacterial cell that is emptied and filled artificially with another substance
- bacteriophagous — Pertaining to the predation and consumption of bacterium.
- bad housekeeper — a person who is not an efficient and thrifty domestic manager
- bag on the side — An extension to an established hack that is supposed to add some functionality to the original. Usually derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly, inelegant, or bloated. Also "to hang a bag on the side [of]". "C++? That's just a bag on the side of C." "They want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting system."
- balanoposthitis — An inflammation of the glans penis and the prepuce.
- bandstop filter — A bandstop filter is a filter designed to eliminate all frequencies within a band of frequencies.
- 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
- barn-door skate — an Atlantic skate, Raja laevis, that grows to a length of 4 feet (1.2 meters) or more.
- barry mountains — a mountain range in SE Australia, in E Victoria: part of the Australian Alps
- base technology — (company) The company which developed and distributes Liana. E-mail: Jack Krupansky <[email protected]> (owner). Address: Base Technology, Attn: Jack Krupansky, 1500 Mass. Ave. NW #114 Washington, DC 2005, USA. 800-786-9505 Telephone: +1 800 876 9505.
- 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.
- bathroom scales — scales typically kept in a bathroom for people to weigh themselves
- 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 one's way — If you are on your way, you have started your journey somewhere.
- be on the skids — to be on the decline or downgrade; meet with failure
- be one up on sb — If you try to get one up on someone, you try to gain an advantage over them.
- be short on sth — If someone or something is short on a particular good quality, they do not have as much of it as you think they should have.
- be snowed under — to be overwhelmed, esp with paperwork
- 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
- beast of burden — A beast of burden is an animal such as an ox or a donkey that is used for carrying or pulling things.
- beat one's gums — to talk much and idly
- beat one's meat — to masturbate
- beat oneself up — to reproach oneself
- beat the bounds — (formerly) to define the boundaries of a parish by making a procession around them and hitting the ground with rods
- bedford heights — a town in N Ohio.
- bedloe's island — Liberty Island
- bedroom slipper — a soft shoe worn in the house
- bedsheet ballot — a very long, involved paper ballot
- beef stroganoff — a dish of thin strips of beef cooked with onions, mushrooms, and seasonings, served in a sour-cream sauce
- before the mast — as an apprentice seaman
- 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.
- ben day process — a method of adding texture, shading, or detail to line drawings by overlaying a transparent sheet of dots or any other pattern during platemaking
- 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.
- bet one's boots — to be certain