14-letter words containing y
- bull's-eye rot — a disease of apples and pears, characterized by sunken, eyelike spots on the fruit and twig cankers, caused by any of several fungi, especially of the genus Neofabraea.
- burghley house — an Elizabethan mansion near Stamford in Lincolnshire: seat of the Cecil family; site of the annual Burghley Horse Trials
- burying beetle — a beetle of the genus Necrophorous, which buries the dead bodies of small animals by excavating beneath them, using the corpses as food for themselves and their larvae: family Silphidae
- burying ground — a burial ground.
- business cycle — the recurrent fluctuation between boom and depression in the economic activity of a capitalist country
- business reply — a form of mail, as a postcard, letter, or envelope, usually sent as an enclosure, and which can be mailed back by respondents without their having to pay postage.
- buteyko method — a breath control technique used to prevent hyperventilation and treat asthma without drugs
- butterfly bomb — Military. a small, aerial, antipersonnel bomb with two folding wings that revolve, slowing the rate of descent and arming the fuze.
- butterfly bush — buddleia
- butterfly fish — any small tropical marine percoid fish of the genera Chaetodon, Chelmon, etc, that has a deep flattened brightly coloured or strikingly marked body and brushlike teeth: family Chaetodontidae
- butterfly knot — a particularly resistant knot which resembles a butterfly and can take loads on both ends, as well as on the loop
- butterfly roof — a roof having more than one slope, each descending inward from the eaves.
- butterfly weed — a North American asclepiadaceous plant, Asclepias tuberosa (or A. decumbens), having flat-topped clusters of bright orange flowers
- buttermilk sky — a cloudy sky resembling the mottled or clabbered appearance of buttermilk.
- butyl aldehyde — butyraldehyde
- butylene group — any of four bivalent isomeric groups having the formula –C 4 H 8 –.
- buyer's market — When there is a buyer's market for a particular product, there are more of the products for sale than there are people who want to buy them, so buyers have a lot of choice and can make prices come down.
- buyers' market — a market in which goods and services are plentiful and prices relatively low.
- buyers' strike — an attempt on the part of consumers to lower price levels by boycotting retailers or certain types of goods.
- buying manager — The buying manager of a store is a senior employee whose job is to manage the purchase and delivery of products and supplies, maintaining stock levels.
- by a long shot — People sometimes use the expression by a long shot to emphasize the opinion they are giving.
- by acclamation — by an overwhelming majority without a ballot
- by appointment — If something can be done by appointment, people can arrange in advance to do it at a particular time.
- by easy stages — not hurriedly
- by implication — If you say that something is the case by implication, you mean that a statement, event, or situation implies that it is the case.
- by the numbers — in prescribed sequence of movements and accompanied by a count
- by the vanload — in very large quantities
- byzantine rite — the rite of the Greek Orthodox Church and of certain Uniat churches, observed in the Greek language.
- c power supply — a battery or other source of power for supplying a constant voltage bias to a control electrode of a vacuum tube.
- cabalistically — In a cabalistic manner.
- cacodylic acid — a colorless, crystalline, deliquescent, poisonous solid, (CH 3) 2 AsOOH, used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes and as an herbicide.
- cadmium yellow — a very vivid yellow containing cadmium sulphide
- cagayan de oro — city in E Mindanao, in the Philippines; pop. 340,000
- calgary redeye — a drink consisting of a mixture of beer and tomato juice.
- call into play — to begin to operate
- caller display — a facility which shows the number of an incoming call
- caloric energy — energy measured in calories
- caltrop family — the plant family Zygophyllaceae, typified by tropical herbaceous plants and shrubs having pinnate leaves, solitary or paired regular flowers, and fruit in the form of a capsule, and including the creosote bush, lignum vitae, and puncture vine.
- campeachy wood — wood from the Central American tree Haematoxylon campechianum
- campylobacters — Plural form of campylobacter.
- campylotropous — (of an ovule) curved so that the micropyle and funiculus almost touch
- canary creeper — a climbing plant, Tropaeolum peregrinum, similar to the nasturtium but with smaller yellow flowers and lobed leaves
- canary islands — a group of mountainous islands in the Atlantic off the NW coast of Africa, forming an Autonomous Community of Spain. Capital: Las Palmas. Pop: 1 944 700 (2003 est)
- cantankerously — In a cantankerous manner.
- capacity crowd — a situation when the maximum number of people possible are watching an event such as a sports game or pop concert
- capillary tube — a glass tube with a fine bore and thick walls, used in thermometers, etc
- capital outlay — a capital expenditure.
- carbonyl group — the bivalent radical CO, occurring in acids, ketones, aldehydes, and their derivatives.
- carboxyl group — functional group in organic acids
- cardboard city — an area of a city in which homeless people sleep rough, often in cardboard boxes