15-letter words containing be
- beat one's gums — to talk much and idly
- beat one's meat — to masturbate
- beat oneself up — to reproach oneself
- beat the bounds — (formerly) to define the boundaries of a parish by making a procession around them and hitting the ground with rods
- beat the bushes — a low plant with many branches that arise from or near the ground.
- bedford heights — a town in N Ohio.
- bedloe's island — Liberty Island
- bedroom slipper — a soft shoe worn in the house
- bedsheet ballot — a very long, involved paper ballot
- bedtime reading — a book, magazine etc read at bedtime
- beef stroganoff — a dish of thin strips of beef cooked with onions, mushrooms, and seasonings, served in a sour-cream sauce
- beef wellington — a lightly roasted beef fillet covered with pâté de foie gras, wrapped in pastry, and then baked
- beefsteak plant — an Asian plant, Perilla frutescens crispa, with aromatic red or green leaves which are used in cooking: family Lamiaceae
- beet leafhopper — a small leafhopper (Circulifer tenellus) that transmits a very destructive virus to sugar beets
- beetroot purple — a deep purple-red; a purple pigment derived from beets.
- before the fact — before the commission of the offence
- before the mast — as an apprentice seaman
- before the wind — with the wind coming from astern
- beginner's luck — the initial good fortune or success commonly supposed to come to a person who has recently taken up a new pursuit, as a sport or game: Catching a large trout the first time you go fishing is simply beginner's luck.
- beginning rhyme — the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words; alliteration, as in The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew.
- belgian griffon — one of a variety of the Brussels griffon having a black or reddish-brown and black coat.
- belief revision — (artificial intelligence) The area of theory change in which preservation of the information in the theory to be changed plays a key role. A fundamental issue in belief revision is how to decide what information to retract in order to maintain consistency, when the addition of a new belief to a theory would make it inconsistent. Usually, an ordering on the sentences of the theory is used to determine priorities among sentences, so that those with lower priority can be retracted. This ordering can be difficult to generate and maintain. The postulates of the AGM Theory for Belief Revision describe minimal properties a revision process should have.
- belladonna lily — a tropical bulbous plant (Amaryllis belladonna) of the lily family, grown for its large pink, white, or red flowers and native to S Africa
- bello horizonte — a city in SE Brazil.
- belt-and-braces — providing double security, in case one security measure should fail
- belt-tightening — If you need to do some belt-tightening, you must spend less money and manage without things because you have less money than you used to have.
- belted sandfish — a sea bass, Serranus subligarius, inhabiting warm, shallow waters of the western Atlantic Ocean.
- ben day process — a method of adding texture, shading, or detail to line drawings by overlaying a transparent sheet of dots or any other pattern during platemaking
- bench scientist — a scientist who does experiments in a laboratory
- benedict arnold — Benedict, 1741–1801, American general in the Revolutionary War who became a traitor.
- benefit concert — a concert to raise money for charity
- benefit in kind — a nonpecuniary benefit, such as a company car or medical insurance, given to an employee
- benefit payment — a payment of money by the government to people who are ill, unemployed, poor or who have children
- benefit society — an organization which, by means of dues, secures for its members certain benefits, such as life insurance, hospitalization, etc.
- benefits agency — an agency that handles the payment of benefits
- benevolent fund — a charitable organization
- benzal chloride — a colorless, oily liquid, C 7 H 6 Cl 2 , used chiefly in the synthesis of benzaldehyde, and in the manufacture of dyes.
- benzoglyoxaline — benzimidazole.
- benzyl benzoate — a colorless, faintly aromatic liquid, C 14 H 12 O 2 , used chiefly as a fixative and solvent in the manufacture of flavorings and perfume and in medicine in the treatment of certain skin conditions.
- benzyl butyrate — a liquid, C 11 H 14 O 2 , having a fruitlike odor, used as a plasticizer and in flavoring.
- benzyl chloride — a colorless, corrosive liquid, C 7 H 7 Cl, used chiefly as an intermediate in the synthesis of benzyl compounds.
- benzyl fluoride — a colorless liquid, C 7 H 7 F, used in organic synthesis.
- berenice's hair — the constellation Coma Berenices
- bergamot orange — a small Asian spiny rutaceous tree, Citrus bergamia, having sour pear-shaped fruit
- bergius process — a method of hydrogenation formerly used with coal to produce an oil similar to petroleum.
- berkeley castle — a castle in Gloucestershire: scene of the murder of Edward II in 1327
- berkshire hills — region of wooded hills in W Mass.: resort area
- bernoulli trial — one of a sequence of independent experiments each of which has the same probability of success, such as successive throws of a die, the outcome of which is described by a binomial distribution
- beside the mark — not striking the point aimed at
- bessel function — one of several transcendental functions, usually represented as power series, that are solutions to a group of related differential equations.