16-letter words containing s, p, e
- blenheim spaniel — a variety of toy spaniel that is white with reddish-brown spots
- boatswain's pipe — a whistle used formerly to give orders on board ship
- bootstrap loader — (operating system) A short program loaded from non-volatile storage and used to bootstrap a computer. On early computers great efforts were expended on making the bootstrap loader short, in order to make it easy to toggle in via the front panel switches. It was just clever enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from punched cards or paper tape), to which it handed control. This program in turn read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer "pulled itself up by its bootstraps" to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap loader is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the "boot block". When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it. A diskless workstation can use bootp to load its OS from the network.
- bootstrap memory — memory that allows new programs to be entered because some simple preliminary instructions or information are already built in.
- boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
- boston tea party — a raid in 1773 made by citizens of Boston (disguised as Indians) on three British ships in the harbour as a protest against taxes on tea and the monopoly given to the East India Company. The contents of several hundred chests of tea were dumped into the harbour
- boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
- bouquet larkspur — a plant, Delphinium grandiflorum, of eastern Asia, having blue or whitish flowers and hairy fruit.
- bowman's capsule — a membranous, double-walled capsule surrounding a glomerulus of a nephron.
- brake horsepower — the rate at which an engine does work, expressed in horsepower. It is measured by the resistance of an applied brake
- branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
- bristlecone pine — a coniferous tree, Pinus aristata, of the western US, bearing cones with bristle-like prickles: one of the longest-lived trees, useful in radiocarbon dating
- brittany spaniel — a short-tailed French bird dog that typically has a smooth orange- or liver-and-white coat
- brothel-creepers — soft-soled men's shoes that were originally popular in the 1950s
- bulletproof vest — a protective garment
- business expense — an amount of money spent in order to carry out one's work and which can be reclaimed and borne by the business
- bust one's chops — Usually, chops. the jaw.
- buttercup squash — a small, usually dark-green squash that is a variety of Cucurbita maxima, having sweet orange flesh.
- button one's lip — to stop talking: often imperative
- bypass operation — an operation involving redirection of blood flow, either to avoid a diseased blood vessel or in order to perform heart surgery
- cadmium sulphide — an orange or yellow insoluble solid used as a pigment in paints, etc (cadmium yellow). Formula: CdS
- camomile shampoo — a liquid or cream preparation of soap or detergent with camomile extract to wash the hair
- canine distemper — distemper1 (def 1a).
- capital reserves — the money which a company holds in reserve
- capital sentence — the punishment of death for a crime
- capsizing moment — the moment of an upsetting couple.
- capsule wardrobe — a collection of clothes and accessories that includes only items considered essential
- carbonless paper — a sheet of paper impregnated with dye which transfers writing or typing onto the copying surface below without the necessity for carbon pigment
- carboxypeptidase — any of several digestive enzymes that catalyze the removal of an amino acid from the end of a peptide chain having a free carbonyl group.
- cards and spades — a generous handicap
- career prospects — the probability or chance for future success in a profession
- caregiver speech — baby talk (def 2).
- caryophyllaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Caryophyllaceae, a family of flowering plants including the pink, carnation, sweet william, and chickweed
- cascade particle — the least massive member of the xi particle family.
- celestial empire — Chinese Empire
- celestial sphere — an imaginary sphere of infinitely large radius enclosing the universe so that all celestial bodies appear to be projected onto its surface
- chattel personal — an item of movable personal property, such as furniture, domestic animals, etc
- checking deposit — a deposit on which cheques may be drawn
- chemical weapons — toxic chemicals used as weapons
- chemolithotrophs — Plural form of chemolithotroph.
- chemoprophylaxis — the prevention of disease using chemical drugs
- chest specialist — a physician who specializes in diseases affecting the organs in the chest
- children's panel — (in Scotland) a group of representatives of relevant agencies, with the power to deal with a child under sixteen who is in criminal or family trouble. Its hearings are private and replace most of the functions of juvenile courts
- chinese fan palm — a fan palm, Livistona chinensis, of southern Japan, having very large, deeply cleft leaves and bluish-green, ovalish fruit.
- chinese pavilion — crescent (def 6).
- chinese primrose — any plant of the genus Primula, as P. vulgaris (English primrose) of Europe, having yellow flowers, or P. sinensis (Chinese primrose) of China, having flowers in a variety of colors. Compare primrose family.
- chinese shar-pei — Shar-Pei.
- chinese whispers — a game in which a message is passed on, in a whisper, by each of a number of people, so that the final version of the message is often radically changed from the original
- chinese-pavilion — a shape resembling a segment of a ring tapering to points at the ends.
- chipped potatoes — chips