17-letter words starting with b
- benjamin franklin — Aretha [uh-ree-thuh] /əˈri θə/ (Show IPA), born 1942, U.S. singer.
- benjamin-constant — Henri Benjamin [ahn-ree ban-zha-man] /ɑ̃ˈri bɛ̃ ʒaˈmɛ̃/ (Show IPA), (Benjamin Constant) 1767–1830, French statesman and author, born in Switzerland.
- benoit mandelbrot — (person) /ben'wa man'dl-bro/ Benoit B. Mandelbrot. The IBM scientist who wrote several original books on fractals and gave his name to the set he was discovered, the Mandelbrot set and coined the term "fractal" in 1975 from the Latin fractus or "to break".
- bent out of shape — very angry, upset, or agitated
- benzeneazobenzene — azobenzene.
- bergisch gladbach — city in W Germany, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia: pop. 105,000
- bergisch-gladbach — an industrial city in W Germany, near Cologne.
- bermuda buttercup — a bulbous plant, Oxalis pescaprae, native to southern Africa, having nodding, yellow flowers.
- best first search — (algorithm) A graph search algorithm which optimises breadth first search by ordering all current paths according to some heuristic. The heuristic attempts to predict how close the end of a path is to a solution. Paths which are judged to be closer to a solution are extended first. See also beam search, hill climbing.
- betagalactosidase — any of a family of enzymes capable of liberating galactose from carbohydrates.
- between ourselves — in confidence; as a secret
- between two fires — between two attacks; shot at, criticized, etc. from both sides
- beyond comparison — outstanding, without equal
- beyond redemption — If you say that someone or something is beyond redemption, you mean that they are so bad it is unlikely that anything can be done to improve them.
- bicycle motocross — a bicycle race over a rough cross-country course, usually consisting of jumps, obstacles, and turns. Abbreviation: BMX.
- bighorn mountains — range of the Rocky Mountains in N Wyo. and S Mont.: highest peak, 13,165 ft (4,013 m)
- bill of adventure — a certificate made out by a merchant to show that goods handled by him and his agents are the property of another party at whose risk the dealing is done
- bill of attainder — (formerly) a legislative act finding a person guilty without trial of treason or felony and declaring him attainted
- billeting officer — an officer who is responsible for billeting
- binary opposition — a relation between the members of a pair of linguistic items, as a pair of distinctive features, such that one is the absence of the other, as voicelessness and voice, or that one is at the opposite pole from the other, as stridency and mellowness.
- binet-simon scale — a test comprising questions and tasks, used to determine the mental age of subjects, usually children
- binocular rivalry — the phenomenon whereby one is unable to see simultaneously different images presented one to each eye; usually in some areas of the eye the image presented to the left eye is seen, in others that presented to the right eye
- 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
- biotransformation — the metabolizing of some substance, esp. a drug, in the body
- 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.
- birth of a nation — an American film (1915), directed by D. W. Griffith.
- bite one's tongue — either of the two fleshy parts or folds forming the margins of the mouth and functioning in speech.
- bitmapped display — bitmap display
- bitter almond oil — almond oil (def 2).
- bitter-almond-oil — Also called sweet almond oil, expressed almond oil. a colorless to pale yellow fatty oil expressed from the seeds of the sweet almond, used in preparing perfumes and confections.
- bjarne stroustrup — (person) The father of C++ and author of the C++ bible.
- 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.