15-letter words containing y, r
- breech delivery — birth of a baby with the feet or buttocks appearing first
- british library — the British national library, formed in 1973 from the British Museum library and other national collections: housed mainly in the British Museum until 1997 when a purpose-built library in St Pancras, London, was completed
- britneyfication — the effect on clothes and fashions of following the revealing styles favoured by the US pop singer Britney Spears (born 1981)
- brooklyn bridge — a suspension bridge over the East River, in New York City, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn: built 1867–84. 5989 feet (1825 meters) long.
- brooklyn center — a city in SE Minnesota, near Minneapolis.
- bucket conveyor — a conveyor consisting of an endless chain with a series of buckets attached at regular intervals, used for moving ore, gravel, grain, or other bulk materials.
- bury st edmunds — a market town in E England, in Suffolk. Pop: 36 218 (2001)
- buryat republic — a constituent republic of SE central Russia, on Lake Baikal: mountainous, with forests covering over half the total area. Capital: Ulan-Ude. Pop: 981 000 (2002). Area: 351 300 sq km (135 608 sq miles)
- butler's pantry — a pantry in a large house where crockery, glassware, cutlery, etc is kept
- butterfly chair — a lightweight chair consisting of a piece of canvas, leather, etc. slung from a framework of metal bars
- butterfly table — a small occasional table, usually having a round or oval top, with drop leaves supported by swinging brackets pivoted to the stretchers and to the underside of the top.
- butterfly valve — a disc that acts as a valve by turning about a diameter, esp one used as the throttle valve in a carburettor
- butterfly wedge — a wooden fastening in the form of a double dovetail for joining two boards at their edges.
- cache coherency — (storage) (Or "cache consistency") /kash koh-heer'n-see/ The synchronisation of data in multiple caches such that reading a memory location via any cache will return the most recent data written to that location via any (other) cache. Some parallel processors do not cache accesses to shared memory to avoid the issue of cache coherency. If caches are used with shared memory then some system is required to detect when data in one processor's cache should be discarded or replaced because another processor has updated that memory location. Several such schemes have been devised.
- cadmean victory — a victory won with great losses to the victors
- cafeteria-style — set up to allow a variety of choices.
- calcareous clay — soil with high limestone content
- calcined baryta — baryta (def 1).
- calcined-baryta — Also called calcined baryta, barium oxide, barium monoxide, barium protoxide. a white or yellowish-white poisonous solid, BaO, highly reactive with water: used chiefly as a dehydrating agent and in the manufacture of glass.
- calydonian boar — a savage boar sent by Artemis to destroy Calydon, a city in Aetolia, because its king had neglected to sacrifice to her. It was killed by Meleager, the king's son
- camelot library — (library)
- canning factory — a building or group of buildings containing a plant assembly where food is sealed in cans or tins to preserve it
- canterbury bell — a campanulaceous biennial European plant, Campanula medium, widely cultivated for its blue, violet, or white flowers
- canterbury lamb — New Zealand lamb exported chilled or frozen to the United Kingdom
- cape gooseberry — a tropical American solanaceous plant, Physalis peruviana, naturalized in southern Africa, having yellow flowers and edible yellow berries
- carboxylic acid — any of a class of organic acids containing the carboxyl group
- carcinogenicity — any substance or agent that tends to produce a cancer.
- cardinal system — a system of coding navigational aids by shape, color, and number, according to their positions relative to navigational hazards.
- cardiopulmonary — of, relating to, or affecting the heart and lungs
- carry one's bat — (of an opening batsman) to reach the end of an innings without being dismissed
- carry the torch — If you say that someone is carrying the torch of a particular belief or movement, you mean that they are working hard to ensure that it is not forgotten and continues to grow stronger.
- carrying charge — the opportunity cost of unproductive assets, such as goods stored in a warehouse
- cassette memory — a removable magnetic tape cartridge that stores data and programs.
- cassette player — A cassette player is a machine that is used for playing cassettes and sometimes also recording them.
- category killer — a person, product, or business that dominates a particular market
- cavalry officer — an officer in a cavalry regiment
- centrosymmetric — having symmetry with a central point
- character study — a work of fiction in which the delineation of the central character's personality is more important than the plot.
- charismatically — In a charismatic way.
- charlatanically — In a charlatanic manner.
- charles doughty — Charles Montagu [mon-tuh-gyoo] /ˈmɒn təˌgyu/ (Show IPA), 1843–1926, English traveler and writer.
- charles simonyi — (person) Microsoft programmer, most famously responsible for Hungarian Notation. Simonyi was born in Budapest in 1948, and for more than a decade was senior programmer at Microsoft in Redmond.
- charles tiffany — Charles Lewis, 1812–1902, U.S. jeweler.
- chartophylacium — (in a medieval church) a place for the keeping of records and documents.
- chateau-thierry — a town in N central France, on the River Marne: scene of the second battle of the Marne (1918) during World War I. Pop: 14 967 (1999)
- chemoautotrophy — the process of deriving energy through oxidizing inorganic chemical compounds, as opposed to photosynthesis
- chemopsychiatry — the study and application of chemical substances in psychiatry
- chief secretary — (in Britain) the second most senior Treasury post, after the Chancellor of the Exchequer
- chinese parsley — coriander leaves used as an herb; cilantro
- chiropterophily — Pollination by bats.