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14-letter words containing s, t, p

  • bacteriophages — Plural form of bacteriophage.
  • ballast pocket — a depression that is formed beneath the ballast layer by penetration of ballast particles into the subgrade and that tends to collect moisture.
  • ballet slipper — a heelless cloth or leather slipper worn by ballet dancers.
  • baptismal font — a large bowl for baptismal water, usually mounted on a pedestal
  • baptismal name — Christian name (def 1).
  • baptismal vows — the solemn promises made during baptism, either by the person baptized or by his or her sponsors
  • base component — the system of rules in a transformational grammar that specify the deep structure of the language
  • beyond dispute — not open to dispute or question; settled
  • bioprospecting — searching for plant or animal species for use as a source of commercially exploitable products, such as medicinal drugs
  • bipartisanship — representing, characterized by, or including members from two parties or factions: Government leaders hope to achieve a bipartisan foreign policy.
  • bipolarisation — the act of bipolarising
  • bishop's mitre — a European heteropterous bug, Aelia acuminata, whose larvae are a pest of cereal grasses: family Pentatomidae
  • bisphosphonate — any drug of a class that inhibits the resorption of bone; used in treating certain bone disorders, esp osteoporosis
  • 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 panthers — (in the US) a militant Black political party founded in 1965 to end the political dominance of White people
  • 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.
  • blepharoplasty — cosmetic surgery performed on the eyelid
  • 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.
  • blow one's top — to lose one's temper
  • bophuthatswana — (formerly) a Bantu homeland in N South Africa: consisted of six separate areas; declared independent by South Africa in 1977 although this was not internationally recognized; abolished in 1993. Capital: Mmabatho
  • border dispute — a disagreement between countries about where the border between them should be drawn
  • bottomless pit — If you describe a supply of something as bottomless, you mean that it seems so large that it will never run out.
  • bowstring hemp — a hemplike fibre obtained from the sansevieria
  • breast implant — an object such as a sachet filled with gel introduced surgically into a woman's breast to enlarge it
  • british empire — (formerly) the United Kingdom and the territories under its control, which reached its greatest extent at the end of World War I when it embraced over a quarter of the world's population and more than a quarter of the world's land surface
  • britney spears — beers
  • broad-spectrum — effective against a wide variety of diseases or microorganisms
  • bronchospastic — of or relating to bronchospasms
  • brood parasite — a young bird hatched and reared by birds of a different species as a result of brood parasitism.
  • brownie points — a credit toward advancement or good standing gained especially by currying favor.
  • budget surplus — the amount by which government income from taxation, customs duties, etc, exceeds expenditure in any one fiscal year
  • bulk transport — the transport of large quantities of goods or commodities in lorries, ships, or by rail
  • bumper sticker — A bumper sticker is a small piece of paper or plastic with words or pictures on it, designed for sticking onto the back of your car. It usually has a political, religious, or humorous message.
  • bursting point — the point at which normal capacity is exceeded.
  • bush carpenter — a rough-and-ready unskilled workman
  • bush telegraph — a means of communication between primitive peoples over large areas, as by drum beats
  • butcher's shop — a shop dedicated to the selling of meat
  • campaign chest — money collected and set aside for use in a campaign, especially a political one; a campaign fund.
  • campylobacters — Plural form of campylobacter.
  • campylotropous — (of an ovule) curved so that the micropyle and funiculus almost touch
  • can't help sth — If you can't help the way you feel or behave, you cannot control it or stop it happening. You can also say that you can't help yourself.
  • capital assets — any assets, tangible or intangible, that are held for long-term investment
  • capitalisation — The act or process of capitalising.
  • captain's mast — a hearing conducted by the captain of a vessel into minor offences of the crew
  • captain's pick — the selection by a team's captain of a player for that team, often a player who has not met criteria for automatic selection
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