Babelavante Bacampicillin Hydrochloride Baccarat Backgammon Background noise Badminton Badminton Baffle Bagpipe Bakelite Balalaika Baldric Ballad Ballistics Balloon Ballot Balun Banjo Barbitone Barge Barium Barometer Baron Barque Barquentine Barrel Basalt Baseball Basin Basket Bassoon Baud Bauhaus Bay BBS BCD Beat-frequency Oscillator Beaufort scale Becquerel Rays Beer Bellini-Tosi Aerial Bellows Belt Benedictine Bengal Hemp Benzene Beryllium Bessemer converter Beta Particles Beta Rays Betatron Bezique Bhang Bicycle Bight Bikini Billiards Biotin Bise Bitter Bitters Bitumen Black Feet Blackhead Blanket Bloom Bloomer Costume Blue peter Bluefish Boat Bog Bohea Bolero Bolt-ropes Boltzmann's Constant Book of the Dead Boopsy Bootikin Bootstrap Loader Bore Boric acid Boron Bort Boston Bowline Braccae Bran Brandy Brass Brig Brigantine British Gum Bromide Bromine Bronchitis Bronze Buckram Buckskin Bude Light Buff Buff Leather Bugle Bulimia Bulkhead Bullion Bum-boat Bunion Burl Burnt Sienna Busby Bushel Bushels Butane Butte Buttress
Babelavante is an old term from the Middle Ages for a bad joke.
Bacampicillin hydrochloride is a drug used to treat upper and lower
respiratory tract infections; urinary tract infections and skin
infections. It has the possible side effects of: Nausea, vomiting,
diarrhea, glossitis (inflammation of the tongue), stomatitis
(inflammation of the mouth), hypersensitivity (rash) and itching.
Baccarat is a gambling card game.
Backgammon is an old board game also called tric trac, tavla or tables.
In electronics, background noise is the aggregate of random noise in a sound-reproducing system, arising from such causes as radio interference, valve and other circuit noise, record scratch, etc. and not from the signal being reproduced.
Badminton is a game played on a court divided in half by a 30 inch deep net five feet above the ground.
Badminton is a game played on a rectangular court by two players, or two pairs of players, with light rackets used to volley a shuttlecock over a high net that divides the court in half.
A baffle is a rigid structure, such as a sheet of sound-insulating material, used to improve the distribution of sound waves.
The bagpipe is a Scottish musical instrument.
Bakelite is a strong synthetic material resistant to heat and chemicals.
A balalaika is a stringed Russian musical instrument.
A baldric is a belt used to support a sword or bugle.
A ballad is a narrative song.
Ballistics is the theory of missile projection.
A balloon is a bag filled with gas.
A ballot is a method of secret voting.
Balun is a shortened term derived from BALanced to UNbalanced transformer. A balun is often used in radio to allow the connection of an unbalanced cable to a balanced aerial system.
A banjo is a stringed musical instrument.
see "Veronal"
A barge is a type of long narrow flat bottomed boat.
Barium is a metal element of the alkaline earth group with the symbol Ba.
A barometer is a device for measuring air pressure.
Baron is an English peerage title.
A barque is a type of masted sailing ship.
A barquentine is a 3 mast sailing ship.
A barrel is a dry and liquid measurement that varies with substance.
Basalt is the name given to lava. It is high in ferrous and magnesian silicates.
Baseball is the national game of USA.
In geography, a basin is a drainage area of a river and its confluents.
A basket is a woven container.
A bassoon is a woodwind musical instrument.
Baud is a unit of computer etc. signalling speed. The speed in Baud is the number of discrete conditions or signal elements per second. If each signal event represents only one bit condition, then Baud is the same as bits per second. Baud does not equal bits per second.
Bauhaus is a German institution for training architects, artists and industrial designers founded in 1919 at Weimer.
In geography, a bay is a broad open indentation in a coast-line.
A BBS (Bulletin Board System) is a communicating computer equipped so as to provide informational messages, file storage and transfer and a degree of message exchange to dial-up data terminal or personal computer users.
BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) is a binary-coded notation in which each decimal digit of a number is expressed in binary form; Example: 23 decimal is 10111 in binary, and 0010 0011 in BCD.
A Beat-frequency Oscillator (B.F.O.) is a device for generating oscillations of approximately sinusoidal waveform by combining two radio-frequency electrical oscillations of different frequencies.
The beaufort scale measures wind speed at sea.
Becquerel Rays was a name originally given to the radiations emitted by radioactive substances, and now distinguished as Alpha Rays, Beta Rays, and Gamma Rays.
Beer is a drink of fermented hops, malt and barley.
A Bellini-Tosi aerial is an arrangement of two large fixed-frame aerials mounted at right angles to each other and used in conjunction with a radiogoniometer in radio direction finding.
Bellows are apparatus for creating a draught.
A belt is a flat strip of material worn around the waist.
Benedictine is a green liqueur.
see "Sunn Hemp"
Benzene is a distillate of petroleum used in dry cleaning.
Beryllium is an alkaline metal element with the symbol Be.
The bessemer converter is a process for making cheap steel. Basically, impurities are removed from the pig iron by blasting air through the molten metal and adding lime to remove phosphorus from the metal. The process takes about twenty minutes.
Beta Particles are electrons travelling at velocities up to 99 per cent of the velocity of light, such as are emitted from the nuclei of the atoms of radioactive materials.
Beta rays are streams of high-velocity beta particles travelling at speeds approaching that of light.
A betatron is an apparatus for accelerating electrons to very high velocities by means of a periodic magnetic field, thus producing "artificial" beta rays.
Bezique is a card game using some of two packs of cards.
Bhang is an Indian drink prepared from the leave and shoots of the hemp (cannabis) plant.
A bicycle is a two wheeled vehicle.
In geography, a bight is a shallow even indentation in the sea coast, often of great width.
The Bikini is a two-piece item of women's swim-wear. It was invented in 1946 by a French designer and was called the "bikini" after the atom bomb test at bikini atoll, the premise being that the bikini was as small as an atom, and the results were explosive! When first revealed, no professional model could be found to model such a revealing item of clothing, and so a cabaret dancer was hired to model the first bikini.
Billiards is a game played with two white balls and one red ball and a cue on a slate bed table. One of the white balls has two black spots on it, this ball is called the spot-ball and is used to start the game.
see "Vitamin H"
The bise is a dry north wind prevalent in Switzerland and southern France.
Bitter is a taste sensation caused by stimulation of the gustatory nerve.
Bitters is an alcoholic beverage of sugar herbs and alcohol.
Bitumen is a natural inflammable pitchy hydrocarbon.
The Black Feet are a north American Indian tribe.
A blackhead is dirt blocking a pore that often causes acne.
A blanket is an extensive covering. Often a warm bed covering.
A bloom is a lump of puddled iron, which leaves the furnace in a rough state, to be subsequently rolled into bars or whatever.
The Bloomer costume was a style of dress adopted around 1849 by Mrs Bloomer of New York. It consisted of a jacket with close sleeves, a skirt reaching a little below the knee, and a pair of Turkish pantaloons secured by bands around the ankles.
The blue peter is a flag flown by ships as they are about to sail.
The bluefish is a fish found off the east coast of north America.
A boat is transport for conveyance across water.
Bog is the name given to soft spongy land.
Bohea is an inferior kind of black tea.
The bolero is a Spanish dance of the ballet class for couples or a single female dancer. It is a slow step with much waving of the arms.
Bolt-ropes were ropes used to strengthen the sails of a ship.
Boltzmann's constant is the ratio of the mean total enery in a molecule to its absolute temperature.
The Book of the Dead was an ancient Egyptian collection of religious texts for guiding the departed soul safely through the dangers of the Amenti, the lower world. A copy of the work was placed with the mummy in his tomb.
Boopsy is a Jamaican term for a man who supports a woman materially, and yet receives no sexual gratification in return (being boopsed). Hence the expression; "Mi a no boops!" which translates as "I am not a boopsy".
A bootikin was a wood and iron boot used in torture to extract confessions from the victim. Wooden wedges were hammered between the leg and the boot with a mallet so as to crush the victims bone.
A Bootstrap Loader is a computer input routine in which pre-set operations are placed into a computer that enable it to get into operation whenever a reset condition occurs; in electronic PBXs this may be called Automatic Program Loading or a similar term; in personal computers it is the sequence that searches predetermined disks for a Command Interpreter program, then a Configure System file; finally an Autoexecution Batch file.
In geography, a bore is a tidal wave produced in river estuaries by the rapid narrowing of the channel.
Boric acid is an acid of borax found naturally.
Boron is an element with the symbol B found in borax.
Bort is a powdered form of diamond.
The Boston is variation of the waltz danced in very slow time against the rhythm of the music.
The bowline is a non-slip knot.
Braccae were an early trouser-like garment worn by the ancient Britons at the time of the Roman Invasion.
Bran is the outer covering of wheat grains.
Brandy is an alcoholic beverage of distilled wine.
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.
A brig is a two masted sailing ship.
A brigantine is a 2 mast sailing ship.
see "Dextrin"
see "Potassium Bromide"
Bromine is a non-metallic element with the symbol Br.
Bronchitis is a chronic inflammation of the bronchial mucous membrane.
Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.
Buckram was a coarse textile fabric stiffened with glue and used in garments to give them and to keep them in the form intended.
Buckskin is a soft form of leather.
The bude light was a very bright gas lamp invented by Mr Gurney who lived in Bude, Cornwall. The bude lamp fed a stream of oxygen into the flame of an argand-lamp or gas-burner.
Buff is the stout velvety dull-yellow leather of buffalo or ox hide.
Buff leather is a type of leather made from the skin of buffalo and other oxen. It is dressed with oil and used for making bandoliers, belts, pouches and gloves amongst other items.
A bugle is a brass musical instrument.
Bulimia is a disorder in which the patient has a morbidly voracious appetite. It is certainly not a new disorder, for it was known of in 1906.
A bulkhead is an upright partition dividing watertight compartments of a ship.
Bullion is gold or silver in bars, plates or other masses which has not been minted
A bum-boat is a small boat used to sell produce to ships lying at a distance from the shore
A bunion is an inflamed swelling on the foot, especially at the joint of the great toe.
A burl is a knot. The term is used in veneering to refer to an overgrown knot in the wood.
Burnt Sienna is the popular name for Terra di Sienna, a brown ferruginous ochre used in painting, and obtained from Italy. Before being used as a pigment it is calcined, and hence the name Burnt Sienna.
A busby is a head-dress worn by British army hussars.
The bushel is a unit of capacity measurement equivalent to 4 pecks, 8 gallons or 3.637 dekalitres. It is also used a measure of weight for apples, equivalent to about 40 lbs.
see "Bushel"
Butane is an alkane inflammable gas by product of petroleum.
A butte is an isolated abrupt flat-topped hill found in the west USA.
A buttress in architecture is a pier built against the exterior of a wall.