14-letter words containing s, p, l, i
- bipolarisation — the act of bipolarising
- bishops' bible — an English translation of the Bible made under the direction of Matthew Parker and published in 1568: the recognized translation of the Bible in England until the Authorized (King James) Version of 1611.
- bite one's lip — If you bite your lip or your tongue, you stop yourself from saying something that you want to say, because it would be the wrong thing to say in the circumstances.
- bitmap display — (hardware) A computer output device where each pixel displayed on the monitor screen corresponds directly to one or more bits in the computer's video memory. Such a display can be updated extremely rapidly since changing a pixel involves only a single processor write to memory compared with a terminal or VDU connected via a serial line where the speed of the serial line limits the speed at which the display can be changed. Most modern personal computers and workstations have bitmap displays, allowing the efficient use of graphical user interfaces, interactive graphics and a choice of on-screen fonts. Some more expensive systems still delegate graphics operations to dedicated hardware such as graphics accelerators. The bitmap display might be traced back to the earliest days of computing when the Manchester University Mark I(?) computer, developed by F.C. Williams and T. Kilburn shortly after the Second World War. This used a storage tube as its working memory. Phosphor dots were used to store single bits of data which could be read by the user and interpreted as binary numbers.
- bits per pixel — (hardware, graphics) (bpp) The number of bits of information stored per pixel of an image or displayed by a graphics adapter. The more bits there are, the more colours can be represented, but the more memory is required to store or display the image. A colour can be described by the intensities of red, green and blue (RGB) components. Allowing 8 bits (1 byte) per component (24 bits per pixel) gives 256 levels for each component and over 16 million different colours - more than the human eye can distinguish. Microsoft Windows [and others?] calls this truecolour. An image of 1024x768 with 24 bpp requires over 2 MB of memory. "High colour" uses 16 bpp (or 15 bpp), 5 bits for blue, 5 bits for red and 6 bits for green. This reduced colour precision gives a slight loss of image quality at a 1/3 saving on memory. Standard VGA uses a palette of 16 colours (4 bpp), each colour in the palette is 24 bit. Standard SVGA uses a palette of 256 colours (8 bpp). Some graphics hardware and software support 32-bit colour depths, including an 8-bit "alpha channel" for transparency effects.
- black skipjack — a small spotted tuna, Euthynnus yaito, of Indo-Pacific seas
- blacktip shark — a widely distributed sand shark, Charcharinus limbatus, having fins that appear to have been dipped in ink, inhabiting shallow waters of warm seas.
- blind stamping — an impression on a book cover without using colour or gold leaf
- blister copper — an impure form of copper having a blister-like surface due to the release of gas during cooling
- blister-packed — presented in a blister pack
- block capitals — Block capitals are simple capital letters that are not decorated in any way.
- block sampling — the selection of a corpus for statistical literary analysis by random selection of a starting point and consideration of the continuous passage following it
- blood spinning — a medical treatment, a use for which is the healing of sports-related injuries, that involves removing the platelet cells from the patient’s blood sample then injecting them into the injured area in order to speed recovery
- bomb explosion — an explosion caused by the detonation of a bomb
- bottomless pit — If you describe a supply of something as bottomless, you mean that it seems so large that it will never run out.
- bouillon spoon — a spoon with a round bowl, smaller than a soup spoon.
- breast implant — an object such as a sachet filled with gel introduced surgically into a woman's breast to enlarge it
- business reply — a form of mail, as a postcard, letter, or envelope, usually sent as an enclosure, and which can be mailed back by respondents without their having to pay postage.
- businesspeople — a person regularly employed in business, especially a white-collar worker, executive, or owner.
- caller display — a facility which shows the number of an incoming call
- cambridge lisp — A flavour of Lisp using BCPL. Sources owned by Fitznorman partners.
- camelopardalis — a N constellation between Ursa Major and Cassiopeia; the Giraffe
- cape peninsula — (in South Africa) the peninsula and the part of the mainland on which Cape Town and most of its suburbs are located
- capital assets — any assets, tangible or intangible, that are held for long-term investment
- capitalisation — The act or process of capitalising.
- captain's walk — widow's walk
- carpet slipper — Carpet slippers are soft, comfortable slippers.
- catastrophical — of the nature of a catastrophe, or disastrous event; calamitous: a catastrophic failure of the dam.
- cavalier poets — a group of mid-17th-century English lyric poets, mostly courtiers of Charles I. Chief among them were Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling, and Richard Lovelace
- celestial pole — either of the two points at which the earth's axis, extended to infinity, would intersect the celestial sphere
- centripetalism — the movement of things towards a centre
- cephalometrics — The measurement and analysis of the craniofacial area, especially as an aid to dental or orthodontic procedures.
- cephalosporins — Plural form of cephalosporin.
- chancellorship — The chancellorship is the position of chancellor. Someone's chancellorship is the period of time when they are chancellor.
- chinese puzzle — an intricate puzzle, esp one consisting of boxes within boxes
- chippewa falls — a city in W Wisconsin.
- choroid plexus — a multilobed vascular membrane, projecting into the cerebral ventricles, that secretes cerebrospinal fluid
- cisalpine gaul — (in the ancient world) that part of Gaul between the Alps and the Apennines
- cislunar space — the region beyond the earth's atmosphere occurring between the earth and moon
- claustrophilia — abnormal pleasure derived from being in a confined space
- claustrophobia — Someone who suffers from claustrophobia feels very uncomfortable or anxious when they are in small or enclosed places.
- claustrophobic — You describe a place or situation as claustrophobic when it makes you feel uncomfortable and unhappy because you are enclosed or restricted.
- cleistocarpous — Mycology. having cleistothecia.
- cleptomaniacs' — kleptomania.
- cleptoparasite — Alternative spelling of kleptoparasite.
- cliffside park — a city in NE New Jersey.
- clinopyroxenes — Plural form of clinopyroxene.
- close position — an arrangement of a chord that has the three upper voices close together
- closed primary — a primary in which only members of a particular party may vote
- cocker spaniel — A cocker spaniel is a breed of small dog with silky hair and long ears.