17-letter words containing c
- bioelectrogenesis — the production of electricity by organisms.
- biological father — the man whose semen fertilized the ovum from which a child was born
- biological marker — a substance, physiological characteristic, gene, etc that indicates, or may indicate, the presence of disease, a physiological abnormality or a psychological condition
- biological mother — the mother who gave birth to a child
- biological parent — a parent who has conceived (biological mother) or sired (biological father) rather than adopted a child and whose genes are therefore transmitted to the child.
- biological rhythm — biorhythm.
- biological shield — a protective shield impervious to radiation, esp the thick concrete wall surrounding the core of a nuclear reactor
- biological weapon — a weapon which uses a biological agent to harm people and other living organisms
- biopharmaceutical — of or relating to drugs produced using biotechnology
- bird's-eye chilli — a small red hot-tasting chilli
- birth certificate — Your birth certificate is an official document which gives details of your birth, such as the date and place of your birth, and the names of your parents.
- black forest cake — a torte consisting typically of thin layers of chocolate cake spread with alternating layers of chocolate, cherry, and whipped-cream filling and covered with whipped cream
- black huckleberry — a low eastern North American shrub, Gaylussacia baccata, of the heath family, having yellowish-green leaves with resinous dots on the underside, clustered orange-red flowers, and shiny, black, edible fruit.
- black nationalism — a movement advocating the establishment of a separate black nation within the U.S.
- black renaissance — a renewal and flourishing of black literary and musical culture during the years after World War I in the Harlem section of New York City.
- black swallowtail — the tail of a swallow or a deeply forked tail like that of a swallow.
- black swallowwort — celandine (def 1).
- black-backed gull — either of two common black-and-white European coastal gulls, Larus fuscus (lesser black-backed gull) and L. marinus (great black-backed gull)
- black-box testing — functional testing
- black-headed gull — a small gull, Chroicocephalus ridibundus, that breeds in much of Europe and Asia, and often scavenges in towns
- black-tailed deer — a variety of mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus columbianus, of the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, having a tail that is black above.
- black-water fever — a form of babesiosis seen in cattle, deer, bison, water buffalo, African buffalo, and reindeer; characterized by fever, depression, jaundice, dark red-black discolouration of the urine, anaemia, and death
- blackboard jungle — a school or school system characterized by lack of discipline and by juvenile delinquency.
- blackcurrant bush — a bush of the blackcurrant plant
- blackout curtains — thick, lined curtains designed to shut out all daylight and keep a room in complete darkness
- blackpoll warbler — a North American warbler, Dendroica striata, the adult male of which has the top of the head black.
- blackwells island — a former name of Roosevelt Island.
- bland-allison act — an act of Congress (1878) requiring the federal government to purchase at the market price from two to four million dollars' worth of silver monthly for conversion into silver dollars containing 16 times more silver per coin than gold in dollar coins of gold.
- blessed sacrament — the consecrated elements of the Eucharist
- blind carbon copy — a duplicate of anything written or typed, or a copy of an email or other electronic document, that is sent to someone whose name is not visible to the primary addressee. Abbreviation: bcc.
- block association — an association for the residents of a particular block in a neighbourhood to discuss and act on matters of common concern
- block coefficient — the ratio of the immersed volume of a vessel to the product of its immersed draft, length, and beam.
- blocking antibody — Immunology. an antibody that partly combines with an antigen and interferes with cell-mediated immunity, thereby preventing an allergic reaction.
- blood cholesterol — a measurement of the amount of cholesterol in someone's blood
- blow hot and cold — to vacillate
- blue dog democrat — a fiscally conservative member of the Democratic Party
- bluegrass country — region in central Ky. where there is much bluegrass
- boatswain's chair — a seat consisting of a short flat board slung from ropes, used to support a person working on the side of a vessel or in its rigging
- body center plate — one of a pair of plates that fit together and support the body of a car on a truck, while allowing the truck to rotate with respect to the body. One plate (body center plate) is attached to the underside of the car body and the other (truck center plate) is part of the car truck.
- body modification — any method of permanently adorning the body, including tattooing and piercing
- book depreciation — Book depreciation is depreciation in a company's internal financial records that is different from the amount that is used for taxes.
- bouncebackability — the ability to recover after a setback, esp in sport
- bowel obstruction — a blockage in the bowel
- branch delay slot — delayed control-transfer
- branch prediction — (processor, algorithm) A technique used in some processors with instruction prefetch to guess whether a conditional branch will be taken or not and prefetch code from the appropriate location. When a branch instruction is executed, its address and that of the next instruction executed (the chosen destination of the branch) are stored in the Branch Target Buffer. This information is used to predict which way the instruction will branch the next time it is executed so that instruction prefetch can continue. When the prediction is correct (and it is over 90% of the time), executing a branch does not cause a pipeline break. Some later CPUs simply prefetch both paths instead of trying to predict which way the branch will go. An extension of the idea of branch prediction is speculative execution.
- breach of promise — (formerly) failure to carry out one's promise to marry
- break the back of — to complete the greatest or hardest part of (a task)
- breakdown service — a service that provides assistance to motorists who break down
- brezhnev doctrine — the doctrine expounded by Leonid Brezhnev in November 1968 affirming the right of the Soviet Union to intervene in the affairs of Communist countries to strengthen Communism.
- bricks and clicks — a combination of traditional business carried out on physical premises and internet trading