8-letter words containing t, a, b
- biathlon — a contest in which skiers with rifles shoot at four targets along a 20-kilometre (12.5-mile) cross-country course
- bibation — the activity of drinking to excess
- bidental — a sacred place where lightning has struck
- biforate — having two openings, pores, or perforations
- big beat — an eclectic type of dance music in which heavy beats and samples are layered over the songs or instrumental tracks of other performers or bands
- big data — Big data is extremely large amounts of information that can only be used with special computers.
- big talk — bragging or boasting talk
- bigamist — A bigamist is a person who commits the crime of marrying someone when they are already legally married to someone else.
- bijugate — (of compound leaves) having two pairs of leaflets
- bilobate — divided into or having two lobes
- binarity — a principle of analysis requiring that a linguistic system, as a phonological, case, or semantic system, be represented as a set of binary oppositions.
- bination — celebration of Mass twice on the same day by the same priest.
- bioplast — a very small unit of bioplasm
- biotical — pertaining to life.
- birdbath — a small basin or trough for birds to bathe in, usually in a garden
- birretta — a stiff square cap with three or four upright projecting pieces extending from the center of the top to the edge, worn by ecclesiastics.
- birthday — Your birthday is the anniversary of the date on which you were born.
- bistable — having two stable states
- bit bang — Transmission of data on a serial line accomplished by rapidly changing a single output bit, in software, at the appropriate times. The technique is a simple loop with eight OUT and SHIFT instruction pairs for each byte. Input is more interesting. And full-duplex (doing input and output at the same time) is one way to separate the real hackers from the wannabees. Bit bang was used on certain early models of Prime computers, presumably when UARTs were too expensive, and on archaic Zilog Z80 micros with a Zilog PIO but no SIO. In an interesting instance of the cycle of reincarnation, this technique is now (1991) coming back into use on some RISC architectures because it consumes such an infinitesimal part of the processor that it actually makes sense not to have a UART.
- bit mask — (programming) A pattern of binary values which is combined with some value using bitwise AND with the result that bits in the value in positions where the mask is zero are also set to zero. For example, if, in C, we want to test if bits 0 or 2 of x are set, we can write int mask = 5; /* binary 101 */ if (x & mask) ... A bit mask might also be used to set certain bits using bitwise OR, or to invert them using bitwise exclusive OR.
- bit part — A bit part is a small and unimportant role for an actor in a film or play.
- bit rate — the rate of flow of binary digits in a digital data-processing system, usually expressed as the number of bits per second
- bitbrace — brace (def 3).
- biteable — denoting something which can be bitten
- bithynia — an ancient country on the Black Sea in NW Asia Minor
- bivalent — (of homologous chromosomes) associated together in pairs
- blackest — lacking hue and brightness; absorbing light without reflecting any of the rays composing it.
- blackett — Patrick Maynard Stuart, Baron. 1897–1974, English physicist, noted for his work on cosmic radiation and his discovery of the positron. Nobel prize for physics 1948
- blackout — A blackout is a period of time during a war in which towns and buildings are made dark so that they cannot be seen by enemy planes.
- blacktop — Blacktop is a hard black substance which is used as a surface for roads.
- bladelet — a small, blade-shaped, sometimes retouched piece of stone used as the cutting edge of a weapon or tool by late Stone Age peoples.
- blairite — of or relating to the modernizing policies of Tony Blair
- blandest — pleasantly gentle or agreeable: a bland, affable manner.
- blankety — a euphemism for any taboo word
- blanquet — a variety of French pear
- blantyre — a city in S Malawi: includes the former town of Limbe.
- blastema — a mass of undifferentiated animal cells that will develop into an organ or tissue: present at the site of regeneration of a lost part
- blasting — a distortion of sound caused by overloading certain components of a radio system
- blastoff — Blastoff is the moment when a rocket leaves the ground and rises into the air to begin a journey into space.
- blastoid — a type of extinct echinoderm, which can be found in fossil form in regions of North America
- blastoma — a tumour composed of embryonic tissue that has not yet developed a specialized function
- blastula — an early form of an animal embryo that develops from a morula, consisting of a sphere of cells with a central cavity
- blatancy — a blatant quality or thing
- blatting — bleat.
- bleakest — bare, desolate, and often windswept: a bleak plain.
- bleating — to utter the cry of a sheep, goat, or calf or a sound resembling such a cry.
- bletilla — any of several terrestrial orchids of the genus Bletilla, of eastern Asia, as B. striata, having terminal clusters of showy purple or white flowers.
- bleuatre — blueish
- blindcat — any of several catfishes, as Satan eurystomus (widemouth blindcat) of Texas, that inhabit underground streams and have undeveloped eyes and unpigmented skin.
- bloating — Bloating is the swelling of a body or part of a body, usually because it has a lot of gas or liquid in it.