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18-letter words containing s, r

  • bipolar transistor — (electronics)   A transistor made from a sandwich of n- and p-type semiconductor material: either npn or pnp. The middle section is known as the "base" and the other two as the "collector" and "emitter". When used as an amplifying element, the base to emitter junction is in a "forward-biased" (conducting) condition, and the base to collector junction is "reverse-biased" or non-conducting. Small changes in the base to emitter current (the input signal) cause either holes (for pnp devices) or free electrons (for npn) to enter the base from the emitter. The attracting voltage of the collector causes the majority of these charges to cross into and be collected by the collector, resulting in amplification. Contrast field effect transistor.
  • bird's-foot violet — a North American violet (Viola pedata) having divided leaves and large blue or purple flowers
  • bird's-nest fungus — any fungus of the family Nidulariaceae, having a nestlike spore-producing body containing egglike spore-filled structures
  • bird's-nest orchid — a brown parasitic Eurasian orchid, Neottia nidus-avis, whose thick fleshy roots resemble a bird's nest and contain a fungus on which the orchid feeds
  • birds of a feather — If you refer to two people as birds of a feather, you mean that they have the same interests or are very similar.
  • biz-core stability — (security)   Internet security products which secure the business core.
  • black lives matter — a political and social movement originating among African Americans, emphasizing basic human rights and racial equality for black people and campaigning against various forms of racism. Abbreviations: BLM, B.L.M.
  • black-necked stork — a large Australian stork, Xenorhyncus asiaticus, having a white plumage, dark green back and tail, and red legs
  • blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
  • board of directors — A company's board of directors is the group of people elected by its shareholders to manage the company.
  • board of elections — a bipartisan board appointed usually by local authorities and charged with control of elections and voting procedure.
  • board of examiners — a group of people who officially administer examinations
  • board of governors — a group of people who oversee the running of a school
  • bore the pants off — to bore extremely
  • borosilicate glass — any of a range of heat- and chemical-resistant glasses, such as Pyrex, prepared by fusing together boron(III) oxide, silicon dioxide, and, usually, a metal oxide
  • bosnia-herzegovina — a country in SE Europe; a constituent republic of Yugoslavia until 1991; in a state of civil war (1992–95); Serbian and Croatian forces were also involved: mostly barren and mountainous, with forests in the east. Languages: Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian (formerly all regarded together as Serbo-Croat). Religion: Muslim, Serbian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic. Currency: marka (pegged to the euro). Capital: Sarajevo. Pop: 3 875 723 (2013 est). Area: 51 129 sq km (19 737 sq miles)
  • boston brown bread — a dark, sweetened, steamed bread made of cornmeal, rye or wheat flour, etc., and molasses
  • boulogne-sur-seine — an industrial suburb of SW Paris. Pop: 106 367 (1999)
  • bounty-fed farmers — farmers who benefit from subsidies
  • branch instruction — a machine-language or assembly-language instruction that causes the computer to branch to another instruction
  • branch to fishkill — (IBM: from the location of one of the corporation's facilities) Any unexpected jump in a program that produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See jump off into never-never land, hyperspace.
  • brazilian rosewood — a Brazilian tree, Dalbergia nigra, of the legume family.
  • brazilian sapphire — a blue variety of tourmaline used as a gem: not a true sapphire.
  • breach of security — an act that violates a country, area, or building's security measures
  • bread and circuses — something offered as a means of distracting attention from a problem or grievance
  • break your silence — If someone breaks their silence about something, they talk about something that they have not talked about before or for a long time.
  • breast enhancement — a surgical procedure to increase the size of a woman's breasts
  • breast enlargement — a surgical procedure to increase the size of a woman's breasts
  • breathe one's last — When someone breathes their last, they die.
  • breathing exercise — an exercise intended to promote effective and healthy breathing and breath control
  • brewer's blackbird — a blackbird, Euphagus cyanocephalus, of the U.S., the male of which has greenish-black plumage with a purplish-black head.
  • brightness control — a control that enables the brightness of the image on a television screen, computer monitor, etc to be adjusted
  • bring someone luck — If you say that something brings bad luck or brings someone good luck, you believe that it has an influence on whether good or bad things happen to them.
  • bring to its knees — If a country or organization is brought to its knees, it is almost completely destroyed by someone or something.
  • bring-and-buy sale — A bring-and-buy sale is an informal sale to raise money for a charity or other organization. People who come to the sale bring things to be sold and buy things that other people have brought.
  • briquet's syndrome — somatization disorder.
  • british somaliland — a former British protectorate (1884–1960) in E Africa, on the Gulf of Aden: united with Italian Somaliland in 1960 to form Somalia (or the Somali Republic); in 1991 the self-styled republic of Somaliland, covering the same area as the former British Somaliland, declared itself independent and continues to function largely as a separate entity, though without international recognition
  • broadcasting house — any of a number of buildings in the UK from which the BBC broadcasts or has broadcast
  • bronchocandidiasis — See under candidiasis.
  • brothers karamazov — a novel (1880) by Dostoevsky.
  • building materials — materials such as bricks, cement, timber, etc
  • bullnose stretcher — bull stretcher (def 1).
  • bullnose-stretcher — Also called bullnose stretcher. a brick having one of the edges along its length rounded for laying as a stretcher in a sill or the like.
  • burkitt's lymphoma — a cancer characterized by tumors containing lymphoid cells, occurring esp. in children, in the jaw, eyes, and internal organs: it is associated with the Epstein-Barr virus
  • burn one's bridges — If you burn your bridges, you do something which forces you to continue with a particular course of action, and makes it impossible for you to return to an earlier situation or relationship.
  • burn one's fingers — to suffer from having meddled or been rash
  • bursa of fabricius — a lymphoid gland of the cloaca in birds, believed to function in disease resistance, and closing or disappearing as the bird ages.
  • burst at the seams — to break, break open, or fly apart with sudden violence: The bitter cold caused the pipes to burst.
  • butler's sideboard — a sideboard, often with a fall front, having on its top a china cabinet with glazed doors.
  • by fits and starts — spasmodically; without concerted effort
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