20-letter words containing t, i, b
- to burst into flames — If something bursts into flames or bursts into flame, it suddenly starts burning strongly.
- to cross the rubicon — If you say that someone has crossed the Rubicon, you mean that they have reached a point where they cannot change a decision or course of action.
- to disturb the peace — If someone is accused of disturbing the peace, they are accused of behaving in a noisy and offensive way in public.
- to get your bearings — to find out where one is or to find out what one should do next
- to give sb their due — You can say 'to give him his due', or 'giving him his due' when you are admitting that there are some good things about someone, even though there are things that you do not like about them.
- to have it in for sb — If someone has it in for you, they do not like you and they want to make life difficult for you.
- to put it to sb that — If you put it to someone that something is true, you suggest that it is true, especially when you think that they will be unwilling to admit this.
- to sb's disadvantage — If something is to your disadvantage or works to your disadvantage, it creates difficulties for you.
- to tighten your belt — If you have to tighten your belt, you have to spend less money and manage without things because you have less money than you used to have.
- tobacco mosaic virus — a retrovirus causing mosaic disease in members of the nightshade family. Abbreviation: TMV.
- travelling-wave tube — an electronic tube in which an electron beam interacts with a distributed high-frequency magnetic field so that energy is transferred from the beam to the field
- tribromoacetaldehyde — bromal.
- tropical disturbance — a very weak, or incipient, tropical cyclone.
- trustee savings bank — a British financial institution which offered savings facilities for small investors and was managed by unpaid trustees. Depositors had no voting rights and no say in financial or managerial matters. The bank is now a public limited company with the same rights and services as other banks and only retains the title in the abbreviated form TSB.
- tubing head pressure — The tubing head pressure is the pressure on the tubing, which is measured at the wellhead.
- twiddle one's thumbs — to turn about or play with lightly or idly, especially with the fingers; twirl.
- undistributed middle — Logic. a middle term of a syllogism that does not refer to its entire class in the major premise or minor premise, with the result that the syllogism is not valid.
- unemployment benefit — an allowance of money paid, usually weekly, to an unemployed worker by a state or federal agency or by the worker's labor union or former employer during all or part of the period of unemployment.
- united arab emirates — group of Arabian states
- united arab republic — a name given the union of Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961; after that, the official name of Egypt alone until 1971. Abbreviation: U.A.R.
- upper income bracket — a grouping of the highest earning tax payers
- vertical combination — the integration within one company of individual businesses working separately in related phases of the production and sale of a product.
- vertical lift bridge — lift bridge.
- walton and weybridge — a city in Surrey, SE England: a London suburb.
- war of the rebellion — American Civil War.
- war production board — the board (1942–45) that supervised and regulated the production and sale of matériel essential to the logistics of World War II. Abbreviation: WPB, W.P.B.
- wardrobe malfunction — an embarrassing situation caused by the clothes a person is wearing
- watch sb like a hawk — If you watch someone like a hawk, you observe them very carefully, usually to make sure that they do not make a mistake or do something you do not want them to do.
- webbing clothes moth — a small brown moth, Tineola biselliella, the larva of which feeds on woolens and spins a web when feeding.
- webster's dictionary — Informal. a dictionary of the English language, especially American English, such as Dictionary.com.
- westminster assembly — a convocation that met at Westminster, London, 1643–49, and formulated the articles of faith (Westminster Confession of Faith) that are accepted as authoritative by most Presbyterian churches.
- white bush (scallop) — a variety of summer squash having a saucer-shaped white fruit, scalloped around the edges
- white people problem — a fairly minor problem, complaint, etc., associated with a relatively high standard of living; a first world problem.
- white-fringed beetle — any of several weevils of the genus Graphognathus, native to South America and now of southeastern and mid-Atlantic U.S., whose larvae feed on roots and cause serious damage to a wide variety of plants.
- wintergreen barberry — a Chinese evergreen shrub, Berberis julianae, of the barberry family, having spiny leaves, dark green above, pale beneath, clusters of yellow flowers, and bluish-black fruit.
- would you believe it — If you say would you believe it, you are emphasizing your surprise about something.