blue | (noun) any of numerous small butterflies of the family Lycaenidae | - |
---|
(noun) the sodium salt of amobarbital that is used as a barbiturate; used as a sedative and a hypnotic | Synonyms: amobarbital sodium, Amytal, blue angel, blue devil |
(noun) blue clothing | - |
(noun) blue color or pigment; resembling the color of the clear sky in the daytime | Synonyms: blueness |
(noun) any organization or party whose uniforms or badges are blue | - |
(noun) the sky as viewed during daylight | Synonyms: blue air, blue sky, wild blue yonder |
(noun) used to whiten laundry or hair or give it a bluish tinge | Synonyms: blueing, bluing |
bluebottle | (noun) blowfly with iridescent blue body; makes a loud buzzing noise in flight | Synonyms: Calliphora vicina |
---|
(noun) an annual Eurasian plant cultivated in North America having showy heads of blue or purple or pink or white flowers | Synonyms: bachelor's button, Centaurea cyanus, cornflower |
bluenose | (noun) a native or inhabitant of Nova Scotia | Synonyms: Nova Scotian |
---|
bluestone | (noun) bluish-grey sandstone used for paving and building | - |
---|
bluetongue | (noun) a viral disease of sheep and cattle that is transmitted by biting midges | - |
---|
boardinghouse | (noun) a private house that provides accommodations and meals for paying guests | Synonyms: boarding house |
---|
boathouse | (noun) a shed at the edge of a river or lake; used to store boats | - |
---|
bobble | (noun) the momentary juggling of a batted or thrown baseball | - |
---|
bobwhite | (noun) a popular North American game bird; named for its call | Synonyms: bobwhite quail, partridge |
---|
bocce | (noun) Italian bowling played on a long narrow dirt court | Synonyms: bocci, boccie |
---|
boccie | (noun) Italian bowling played on a long narrow dirt court | Synonyms: bocce, bocci |
---|
bodice | (noun) part of a dress above the waist | - |
---|
bogie | (noun) an unidentified (and possibly enemy) aircraft | Synonyms: bogey, bogy |
---|
(noun) a bogle or goblin; where used as a proper name, the Devil | Synonyms: bogey, bogy |
boilerplate | (noun) thick plate iron used in the production of boilers | - |
---|
(noun) standard formulations uniformly found in certain types of legal documents or news stories | - |
boldface | (noun) a typeface with thick heavy lines | Synonyms: bold, bold face |
---|
bole | (noun) the main stem of a tree; usually covered with bark; the bole is usually the part that is commercially useful for lumber | Synonyms: tree trunk, trunk |
---|
(noun) a soft oily clay used as a pigment (especially a reddish brown pigment) | - |
bolete | (noun) any fungus of the family Boletaceae | - |
---|
bolide | (noun) an especially luminous meteor (sometimes exploding) | Synonyms: fireball |
---|
bolshie | (noun) emotionally charged terms used to refer to extreme radicals or revolutionaries | Synonyms: Bolshevik, bolshy, Marxist, red |
---|
bombazine | (noun) a twilled fabric used for dresses; the warp is silk and the weft is worsted | - |
---|
bombie | (noun) an unexploded bomblet | - |
---|
bonce | (noun) informal terms for a human head | Synonyms: attic, bean, dome, noggin, noodle |
---|
bondage | (noun) sexual practice that involves physically restraining (by cords or handcuffs) one of the partners | - |
---|
(noun) the state of being under the control of another person | Synonyms: slavery, thraldom, thrall, thralldom |
(noun) the state of being under the control of a force or influence or abstract power | - |
bone | (noun) a shade of white the color of bleached bones | Synonyms: ivory, off-white, pearl |
---|
(noun) rigid connective tissue that makes up the skeleton of vertebrates | Synonyms: os |
(noun) the porous calcified substance from which bones are made | Synonyms: osseous tissue |
bonfire | (noun) a large outdoor fire that is lighted as a signal or in celebration | Synonyms: balefire |
---|
bonhomie | (noun) a disposition to be friendly and approachable (easy to talk to) | Synonyms: affability, affableness, amiability, amiableness, geniality |
---|
boniface | (noun) the owner or manager of an inn | Synonyms: host, innkeeper |
---|
bonxie | (noun) gull-like jaeger of northern seas | Synonyms: skua |
---|
booboisie | (noun) class consisting of all those who are considered boobs | - |
---|
boodle | (noun) a gambling card game in which chips are placed on the ace and king and queen and jack of separate suits (taken from a separate deck); a player plays the lowest card of a suit in his hand and successively higher cards are played until the sequence stops; the player who plays a card matching one in the layout wins all the chips on that card | Synonyms: Chicago, Michigan, Newmarket, stops |
---|
(noun) informal terms for money | Synonyms: bread, cabbage, clams, dinero, dough, gelt, kale, lettuce, lolly, loot, lucre, moolah, pelf, scratch, shekels, simoleons, sugar, wampum |
boogie | (noun) an instrumental version of the blues (especially for piano) | Synonyms: boogie-woogie |
---|
bookcase | (noun) a piece of furniture with shelves for storing books | - |
---|
bookie | (noun) a gambler who accepts and pays off bets (especially on horse races) | Synonyms: bookmaker |
---|
booklouse | (noun) minute wingless psocopterous insects injurious to books and papers | Synonyms: book louse, deathwatch, Liposcelis divinatorius |
---|
bookmobile | (noun) a van with shelves of books; serves as a mobile library or bookstore | - |
---|
bookplate | (noun) a label identifying the owner of a book in which it is pasted | Synonyms: ex libris |
---|
bookstore | (noun) a shop where books are sold | Synonyms: bookshop, bookstall |
---|
boondoggle | (noun) work of little or no value done merely to look busy | - |
---|
bootee | (noun) a slipper that is soft and wool (for babies) | Synonyms: bootie |
---|
boothose | (noun) protective stockings worn with or in place of boots | - |
---|
bootie | (noun) a slipper that is soft and wool (for babies) | Synonyms: bootee |
---|
bootlace | (noun) a long lace for fastening boots | - |
---|
booze | (noun) an alcoholic beverage that is distilled rather than fermented | Synonyms: hard drink, hard liquor, John Barleycorn, liquor, spirits, strong drink |
---|
borage | (noun) an herb whose leaves are used to flavor sauces and punches; young leaves can be eaten in salads or cooked | - |
---|
(noun) hairy blue-flowered European annual herb long used in herbal medicine and eaten raw as salad greens or cooked like spinach | Synonyms: Borago officinalis, tailwort |
borate | (noun) a salt or ester of boric acid | - |
---|
bordelaise | (noun) brown sauce with beef marrow and red wine | - |
---|
borderline | (noun) a line that indicates a boundary | Synonyms: border, boundary line, delimitation, mete |
---|
bore | (noun) a hole or passage made by a drill; usually made for exploratory purposes | Synonyms: bore-hole, drill hole |
---|
(noun) diameter of a tube or gun barrel | Synonyms: caliber, calibre, gauge |
(noun) a high wave (often dangerous) caused by tidal flow (as by colliding tidal currents or in a narrow estuary) | Synonyms: aegir, eager, eagre, tidal bore |
(noun) a person who evokes boredom | Synonyms: dullard |
borecole | (noun) a hardy cabbage with coarse curly leaves that do not form a head | Synonyms: Brassica oleracea acephala, cole, colewort, kail, kale |
---|
bornite | (noun) a mineral consisting of sulfides of copper and iron that is found in copper deposits | Synonyms: peacock ore |
---|
borosilicate | (noun) a salt of boric and silicic acids | - |
---|
bosie | (noun) a cricket ball bowled as if to break one way that actually breaks in the opposite way | Synonyms: bosie ball, googly, wrong 'un |
---|
bottle | (noun) a glass or plastic vessel used for storing drinks or other liquids; typically cylindrical without handles and with a narrow neck that can be plugged or capped | - |
---|
(noun) a vessel fitted with a flexible teat and filled with milk or formula; used as a substitute for breast feeding infants and very young children | Synonyms: feeding bottle, nursing bottle |
(noun) the quantity contained in a bottle | Synonyms: bottleful |
bottlenose | (noun) northern Atlantic beaked whale with a bulbous forehead | Synonyms: bottle-nosed whale, bottlenose whale, Hyperoodon ampullatus |
---|
(noun) any of several dolphins with rounded forehead and well-developed beak; chiefly of northern Atlantic and Mediterranean | Synonyms: bottle-nosed dolphin, bottlenose dolphin |
bouchee | (noun) shell of puff paste | Synonyms: patty shell |
---|
boucle | (noun) a fabric of uneven yarn that has an uneven knobby effect | - |
---|
bouffe | (noun) opera with a happy ending and in which some of the text is spoken | Synonyms: comic opera, opera bouffe, opera comique |
---|
bouillabaisse | (noun) highly seasoned Mediterranean soup or stew made of several kinds of fish and shellfish with tomatoes and onions or leeks and seasoned with saffron and garlic and herbs | - |
---|
boule | (noun) an inlaid furniture decoration; tortoiseshell and yellow and white metal form scrolls in cabinetwork | Synonyms: boulle, buhl |
---|
boulle | (noun) an inlaid furniture decoration; tortoiseshell and yellow and white metal form scrolls in cabinetwork | Synonyms: boule, buhl |
---|
bounce | (noun) a light, self-propelled movement upwards or forwards | Synonyms: bound, leap, leaping, saltation, spring |
---|
(noun) the quality of a substance that is able to rebound | Synonyms: bounciness |
(noun) rebounding from an impact (or series of impacts) | Synonyms: bouncing |
bourgeoisie | (noun) the social class between the lower and upper classes | Synonyms: middle class |
---|
bourne | (noun) an archaic term for a goal or destination | Synonyms: bourn |
---|
(noun) an archaic term for a boundary | Synonyms: bourn |
bourtree | (noun) a common shrub with black fruit or a small tree of Europe and Asia; fruit used for wines and jellies | Synonyms: black elder, common elder, elderberry, European elder, Sambucus nigra |
---|
boutique | (noun) a shop that sells women's clothes and jewelry | Synonyms: dress shop |
---|
boutonniere | (noun) a flower that is worn in a buttonhole | - |
---|
bovine | (noun) any of various members of the genus Bos | - |
---|
bowline | (noun) a loop knot that neither slips nor jams | Synonyms: bowline knot |
---|
bowtie | (noun) a man's tie that ties in a bow | Synonyms: bow-tie, bow tie |
---|
brace | (noun) a structural member used to stiffen a framework | Synonyms: bracing |
---|
(noun) a carpenter's tool having a crank handle for turning and a socket to hold a bit for boring | Synonyms: bitstock |
(noun) an appliance that corrects dental irregularities | Synonyms: braces, orthodontic braces |
(noun) a support that steadies or strengthens something else | - |
(noun) elastic straps that hold trousers up | Synonyms: gallus, suspender |
(noun) a rope on a square-rigged ship that is used to swing a yard about and secure it | - |
(noun) either of two punctuation marks ({ or }) used to enclose textual material | - |
(noun) a set of two similar things considered as a unit | Synonyms: pair |
(noun) two items of the same kind | Synonyms: couple, couplet, distich, duad, duet, duo, dyad, pair, span, twain, twosome, yoke |
brachistochrone | (noun) a curve between two points along which a body can move under gravity in a shorter time than for any other curve. | - |
---|
bracteole | (noun) a small bract | Synonyms: bractlet |
---|
brae | (noun) a slope or hillside | - |
---|
braille | (noun) a point system of writing in which patterns of raised dots represent letters and numerals | - |
---|
braincase | (noun) the part of the skull that encloses the brain | Synonyms: brainpan, cranium |
---|
brainwave | (noun) the clear (and often sudden) understanding of a complex situation | Synonyms: brainstorm, insight |
---|
(noun) (neurophysiology) rapid fluctuations of voltage between parts of the cerebral cortex that are detectable with an electroencephalograph | Synonyms: brain wave, cortical potential |
brake | (noun) a restraint used to slow or stop a vehicle | - |
---|
(noun) anything that slows or hinders a process | - |
(noun) an area thickly overgrown usually with one kind of plant | - |
(noun) large coarse fern often several feet high; essentially weed ferns; cosmopolitan | Synonyms: bracken, pasture brake, Pteridium aquilinum |
(noun) any of various ferns of the genus Pteris having pinnately compound leaves and including several popular houseplants | - |
bramble | (noun) any of various rough thorny shrubs or vines | - |
---|
brasserie | (noun) a small restaurant serving beer and wine as well as food; usually cheap | - |
---|
brassie | (noun) (formerly) a golfing wood with a face more elevated than a driver but less than a spoon | - |
---|
brassiere | (noun) an undergarment worn by women to support their breasts | Synonyms: bandeau, bra |
---|
brattice | (noun) a partition (often temporary) of planks or cloth that is used to control ventilation in a mine | - |
---|
brave | (noun) people who are brave | - |
---|
(noun) a North American Indian warrior | - |
breadline | (noun) a queue of people waiting for free food | Synonyms: bread line |
---|
breakable | (noun) an article that is fragile and easily broken | - |
---|
breakage | (noun) the act of breaking something | Synonyms: break, breaking |
---|
(noun) reimbursement for goods damaged while in transit or in use | - |
(noun) the quantity broken | - |
breakaxe | (noun) West Indian timber tree having very hard wood | Synonyms: break-axe, breakax, Sloanea jamaicensis |
---|
breakstone | (noun) any of various plants of the genus Saxifraga | Synonyms: rockfoil, saxifrage |
---|
breastbone | (noun) the flat bone that articulates with the clavicles and the first seven pairs of ribs | Synonyms: sternum |
---|
breastplate | (noun) armor plate that protects the chest; the front part of a cuirass | Synonyms: aegis, egis |
---|
breaststroke | (noun) a swimming stroke; the arms are extended together in front of the head and swept back on either side accompanied by a frog kick | - |
---|
breeze | (noun) any undertaking that is easy to do | Synonyms: child's play, cinch, duck soup, picnic, piece of cake, pushover, snap, walkover |
---|
(noun) a slight wind (usually refreshing) | Synonyms: air, gentle wind, zephyr |
breve | (noun) a diacritical mark (U-shaped) placed over a vowel to indicate a short sound | - |
---|
brewage | (noun) drink made by steeping and boiling and fermenting rather than distilling | Synonyms: brew |
---|
bribe | (noun) payment made to a person in a position of trust to corrupt his judgment | Synonyms: payoff |
---|
bricolage | (noun) construction of something by whatever material are available | - |
---|
bricole | (noun) catapult operated by manpower pulling cords attached to a lever and slign to launch projectiles | Synonyms: mangonel, traction trebuchet |
---|
bride | (noun) a woman who has recently been married | - |
---|
(noun) a woman participant in her own marriage ceremony | - |
bridecake | (noun) a rich cake with two or more tiers and covered with frosting and decorations; served at a wedding reception | Synonyms: wedding cake |
---|
bridge | (noun) any of various card games based on whist for four players | - |
---|
(noun) a structure that allows people or vehicles to cross an obstacle such as a river or canal or railway etc. | Synonyms: span |
(noun) an upper deck where a ship is steered and the captain stands | Synonyms: bridge deck |
(noun) the link between two lenses; rests on the nose | Synonyms: nosepiece |
(noun) a denture anchored to teeth on either side of missing teeth | Synonyms: bridgework |
(noun) a wooden support that holds the strings up | - |
(noun) a circuit consisting of two branches (4 arms arranged in a diamond configuration) across which a meter is connected | Synonyms: bridge circuit |
(noun) the hard ridge that forms the upper part of the nose | - |
(noun) something resembling a bridge in form or function | - |