16-letter words containing y, a, r, b
- fancy dress ball — a ball at which the guests wear fancy dress
- flabbergastingly — Surprisingly, astonishingly or amazingly.
- flashbulb memory — the clear recollections that a person may have of the circumstances associated with a dramatic event
- flat-track bully — a sportsperson who dominates inferior opposition, but who cannot beat top-level opponents
- frontal lobotomy — Surgery. a psychosurgical procedure in which the frontal lobes are separated from the rest of the brain by cutting the connecting nerve fibers.
- galvanic battery — battery (def 1a).
- general assembly — the legislature in some states of the U.S.
- generalisability — Non-Oxford British standard spelling of generalizability.
- generalizability — The quality of being generalizable.
- hamadryas baboon — a baboon, Papio (Comopithecus) hamadryas, of Ethiopia, the male of which has a mantle of long, dark hair about the head and shoulders: held sacred by the ancient Egyptians.
- harleian library — a large library of manuscripts collected by the British statesman Robert Harley and his son and now housed in the British Museum.
- hexahydrobenzene — cyclohexane.
- hyaloid membrane — the delicate, pellucid, and nearly structureless membrane enclosing the vitreous humor of the eye.
- hybrid perpetual — a type of cultivated rose bred from varieties having vigorous growth and more or less recurrent bloom.
- hydration number — the number of molecules of water with which an ion can combine in an aqueous solution of given concentration.
- hydrobromic acid — a colorless or faintly yellow corrosive liquid, HBr, an aqueous solution of hydrogen bromide.
- hyperreal number — any of the set of numbers formed by the addition of infinite numbers and infinitesimal numbers to the set of real numbers
- hypervariability — apt or liable to vary or change; changeable: variable weather; variable moods.
- imaginary number — Also called imaginary, pure imaginary number. a complex number having its real part equal to zero.
- imperfectability — The quality of not being perfectable; of being forever imperfect.
- imperturbability — incapable of being upset or agitated; not easily excited; calm: imperturbable composure.
- impracticability — The quality or condition of being impracticable.
- in a brown study — in a reverie or daydream
- indescribability — (uncountable) The state or characteristic of being indescribable.
- inter-laboratory — a building, part of a building, or other place equipped to conduct scientific experiments, tests, investigations, etc., or to manufacture chemicals, medicines, or the like.
- interoperability — capable of being used or operated reciprocally: interoperable weapons systems.
- interpretability — to give or provide the meaning of; explain; explicate; elucidate: to interpret the hidden meaning of a parable.
- irreplaceability — The quality of being irreplaceable; inability to be replaced; (frequently) uniqueness.
- irretrievability — The state or quality of being irretrievable.
- jabir ibn hayyan — (Jabir ibn Hayyan) 8th-century a.d, Arab alchemist.
- journeyman baker — a baker who is qualified to work in the employment of another
- kentucky warbler — a wood warbler, Oporornis formosus, of the U.S., olive-green above, yellow below, and marked with black on the face.
- krebs urea cycle — urea cycle.
- leveraged buyout — the purchase of a company with borrowed money, using the company's assets as collateral, and often discharging the debt and realizing a profit by liquidating the company. Abbreviation: LBO.
- library pictures — a caption used to alert viewers that footage being broadcast is from an earlier time and is not happening now
- lick observatory — the astronomical observatory of the University of California, situated on Mount Hamilton, near San Jose, California, and having a 120-inch (3-meter) reflecting telescope and a 36-inch (91-cm) refracting telescope.
- madame butterfly — an opera (1904) by Giacomo Puccini.
- medal of bravery — a Canadian award for courage
- megakaryoblastic — (cytology) Of or pertaining to a megakaryoblast.
- mesembryanthemum — any of various chiefly Old World plants of the genus Mesembryanthemum, having thick, fleshy leaves and often showy flowers.
- modacrylic fiber — any of various synthetic copolymer textile fibers, as Dynel, containing less than 85 percent but more than 35 percent of acrylonitrile.
- molybdate orange — a pigment consisting of a solid solution of sulfate, molybdate, and chromate compounds of lead.
- mulberry harbour — either of two prefabricated floating harbours towed across the English Channel to the French coast for the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944
- multi-way branch — switch statement
- narragansett bay — an inlet of the Atlantic in E Rhode Island. 28 miles (45 km) long.
- national library — a library established and funded by a national government with the designation national, to serve the needs of this government, often to function as a library of record for the nation's publishing output, and in some cases to act as a central agency for library and bibliographic development in the nation.
- new smyrna beach — a town in NE Florida.
- non-carbohydrate — any of a class of organic compounds that are polyhydroxy aldehydes or polyhydroxy ketones, or change to such substances on simple chemical transformations, as hydrolysis, oxidation, or reduction, and that form the supporting tissues of plants and are important food for animals and people.
- northanger abbey — a novel (1818) by Jane Austen.
- observationality — The property of being observational.