14-letter words containing s, t, e, d
- at loggerheads — If two or more people or groups are at loggerheads, they disagree very strongly with each other.
- at second hand — If you experience something at second hand, you are told about it by other people rather than experiencing it yourself.
- at the outside — You use at the outside to say that you think that a particular amount is the largest possible in a particular situation, or that a particular time is the latest possible time for something to happen.
- atacama desert — a desert region along the W coast of South America, mainly in N Chile: a major source of nitrates. Area: about 80 000 sq km (31 000 sq miles)
- atlas autocode — (language) The Autocode for the Ferranti Atlas, which may have been the first commercial computer with hardware-paged virtual memory. Whereas other autocodes were basically assembly languages, Atlas Autocode was high-level and block-structured, resembling a cross between Fortran and ALGOL 60. It had call-by value, loops, declarations, complex numbers, pointers, heap and stack storage generators, dynamic arrays, and extensible syntax.
- audio-cassette — a cassette of tape on which sound only is recorded
- audiocassettes — Plural form of audiocassette.
- austrian shade — a window shade in which the fabric falls in a series of puffy festoons created by vertical rows of shirring.
- autoantibodies — Plural form of autoantibody.
- autodesk, inc. — (company) The distributors of the AutoCAD CAD package. Address: Sausalito, CA, USA.
- autodestructed — Simple past tense and past participle of autodestruct.
- autoresponders — Plural form of autoresponder.
- axis-ordinates — y-axis (def 1).
- backside-front — backend-to.
- banker's draft — A banker's draft is the same as a bank draft.
- barbados earth — a diatomaceous marl found in Barbados
- barrel-chested — A barrel-chested man has a large, rounded chest.
- basidiomycetes — Mycology. any of a group of fungi constituting the phylum Basidiomycota of the kingdom Fungi (or, in older classification schemes, the class Basidiomycetes of the kingdom Plantae), characterized by bearing the spores on a basidium, including the smuts, rust, mushrooms, and puffballs.
- basket-of-gold — a yellow-flowered perennial plant (Alyssum saxatile, now more properly Aurinia saxatilis) of the crucifer family, often used in rock gardens
- bastard ridley — ridley (def 1).
- bastard turtle — ridley (def 1).
- bastard-ridley — ridley (def 1).
- bastard-turtle — ridley (def 1).
- basting thread — inexpensive, loosely twisted thread that can be easily pulled out when permanent stitching is in place
- batten disease — a rare hereditary disease in which lipids accumulate in the nervous system, leading to mental deterioration, loss of mobility, and blindness that start in early childhood
- battle-scarred — adversely affected from the experience of battle, or some other traumatic experience
- be cursed with — to be afflicted with; suffer from
- beard-stroking — deep thought
- bend the rules — to ignore rules or change them to suit one's own convenience
- bermuda shorts — close-fitting shorts that come down to the knees
- beyond dispute — not open to dispute or question; settled
- bide sb's time — If you bide your time, you wait for a good opportunity before doing something.
- bidialectalism — the state of being bidialectal
- big red switch — (jargon) (BRS) IBM jargon for the power switch on a computer, especially the "Emergency Pull" switch on an IBM mainframe or the power switch on an IBM PC where it really is large and red. "This [email protected]%$% bitty box is hung again; time to hit the Big Red Switch." It is alleged that the emergency pull switch on an IBM 360/91 actually fired a non-conducting bolt into the main power feed; the BRSes on more recent mainframes physically drop a block into place so that they can't be pushed back in. People get fired for pulling them, especially inappropriately (see also molly-guard). Compare power cycle, three-finger salute, 120 reset; see also scram switch.
- binding strake — a very strong, heavy strake of planking, especially one next to a sheer strake.
- black redstart — a small, Passerine bird, Phoenicurus ochruros, found in Central and S Europe
- blind register — (in the United Kingdom) a list of those who are blind and are therefore entitled to financial and other benefits
- blind staggers — the staggers
- blister-packed — presented in a blister pack
- border dispute — a disagreement between countries about where the border between them should be drawn
- born yesterday — brought forth by birth.
- bosworth field — the site, two miles south of Market Bosworth in Leicestershire, of the battle that ended the Wars of the Roses (August 1485). Richard III was killed and Henry Tudor was crowned king as Henry VII
- bound moisture — Bound moisture is liquid in a solid, which exerts a vapor pressure that is less than the pure liquid would do at the same temperature.
- boundary-stone — a stone marking a boundary, sometimes giving information such as the initials of the local authority in whose jurisdiction the boundary is
- boxed comments — (programming) Comments that occupy several lines by themselves; so called because in assembler and C code they are often surrounded by a box in a style similar to this: /************************************************* * * This is a boxed comment in C style * *************************************************/ Common variants of this style omit the asterisks in column 2 or add a matching row of asterisks closing the right side of the box. The sparest variant omits all but the comment delimiters themselves; the "box" is implied. Opposite of winged comments.
- brandy snifter — snifter (def 1).
- breakfast food — any prepared cereal for breakfast
- breast-feeding — to nurse (a baby) at the breast; suckle.
- breeding stock — animals specifically kept to breed from
- broad-spectrum — effective against a wide variety of diseases or microorganisms