| battle | (noun) a hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war | Synonyms: conflict, engagement, fight |
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| (noun) an energetic attempt to achieve something | Synonyms: struggle |
| (noun) an open clash between two opposing groups (or individuals) | Synonyms: conflict, struggle |
| (verb) battle or contend against in or as if in a battle | Synonyms: combat |
| battledore | (noun) an ancient racket game | Synonyms: battledore and shuttlecock |
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| (noun) a light long-handled racket used by badminton players | Synonyms: badminton racket, badminton racquet |
| battlefield | (noun) a region where a battle is being (or has been) fought | Synonyms: battleground, field, field of battle, field of honor |
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| battlefront | (noun) the line along which opposing armies face each other | Synonyms: front, front line |
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| battleful | (adjective) having or showing a ready disposition to fight | Synonyms: bellicose, combative |
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| battleground | (noun) a region where a battle is being (or has been) fought | Synonyms: battlefield, field, field of battle, field of honor |
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| battlement | (noun) a rampart built around the top of a castle with regular gaps for firing arrows or guns | Synonyms: crenelation, crenellation |
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| battlemented | (adjective) having or resembling repeated square indentations like those in a battlement | Synonyms: castellated, castled, crenelated, embattled |
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| (adjective) protected with battlements or parapets with indentations or embrasures for shooting through | - |
| battler | (noun) someone who fights (or is fighting) | Synonyms: belligerent, combatant, fighter, scrapper |
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| battleship | (noun) large and heavily armoured warship | Synonyms: battlewagon |
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| battlesight | (noun) an arrangement of sights that makes possible the rapid aiming of a firearm at short ranges | Synonyms: battle sight |
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| battlewagon | (noun) large and heavily armoured warship | Synonyms: battleship |
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| battue | (noun) a hunt in which beaters force the game to flee in the direction of the hunter | - |
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| (noun) indiscriminate slaughter | Synonyms: bloodbath, bloodletting, bloodshed |
| batty | (adjective) informal or slang terms for mentally irregular | Synonyms: around the bend, balmy, barmy, bats, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crackers, daft, dotty, fruity, haywire, kookie, kooky, loco, loony, loopy, nuts, nutty, round the bend, wacky, whacky |
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| batwing | (adjective) formed or shaped like a bat's wing | - |
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| (noun) one of a pair of swinging doors (as at the entrance to a western saloon) | - |
| bauble | (noun) cheap showy jewelry or ornament on clothing | Synonyms: bangle, fallal, gaud, gewgaw, novelty, trinket |
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| (noun) a mock scepter carried by a court jester | - |
| baud | (noun) (computer science) a data transmission rate (bits/second) for modems | Synonyms: baud rate |
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| baulk | (noun) one of several parallel sloping beams that support a roof | Synonyms: balk, rafter |
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| (noun) something immaterial that interferes with or delays action or progress | Synonyms: balk, check, deterrent, handicap, hinderance, hindrance, impediment |
| (noun) the area on a billiard table behind the balkline | Synonyms: balk |
| (verb) refuse to comply | Synonyms: balk, jib, resist |
| baulker | (noun) a person who refuses to comply | Synonyms: balker, noncompliant |
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| bauxite | (noun) a clay-like mineral; the chief ore of aluminum; composed of aluminum oxides and aluminum hydroxides; used as an abrasive and catalyst | - |
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| bauxitic | (adjective) resembling or containing bauxite | - |
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| bawbee | (noun) an old Scottish coin of little value | - |
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| bawd | (noun) a woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money | Synonyms: cocotte, cyprian, fancy woman, harlot, lady of pleasure, prostitute, sporting lady, tart, whore, woman of the street, working girl |
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| bawdily | (adverb) in a bawdy manner | - |
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| bawdiness | (noun) the trait of behaving in an obscene manner | Synonyms: lewdness, obscenity, salaciousness, salacity |
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| bawdry | (noun) lewd or obscene talk or writing | Synonyms: bawdy |
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| bawdy | (adjective) humorously vulgar | Synonyms: off-color, ribald |
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| (noun) lewd or obscene talk or writing | Synonyms: bawdry |
| bawdyhouse | (noun) a building where prostitutes are available | Synonyms: bagnio, bordello, brothel, cathouse, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, sporting house, whorehouse |
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| bawl | (verb) cry loudly | - |
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| (verb) shout loudly and without restraint | Synonyms: bellow |
| (verb) make a raucous noise | Synonyms: yawp |
| bawler | (noun) someone who communicates vocally in a very loud voice | Synonyms: bellower, roarer, screamer, screecher, shouter, yeller |
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| (noun) a loud weeper | - |
| bawling | (noun) loud cries made while weeping | Synonyms: wailing |
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| bay | (adjective) (used of animals especially a horse) of a moderate reddish-brown color | - |
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| (noun) a horse of a moderate reddish-brown color | - |
| (noun) a small recess opening off a larger room | Synonyms: alcove |
| (noun) a compartment in an aircraft used for some specific purpose | - |
| (noun) a compartment on a ship between decks; often used as a hospital | - |
| (noun) the sound of a hound on the scent | - |
| (noun) an indentation of a shoreline larger than a cove but smaller than a gulf | Synonyms: embayment |
| (noun) small Mediterranean evergreen tree with small blackish berries and glossy aromatic leaves used for flavoring in cooking; also used by ancient Greeks to crown victors | Synonyms: bay laurel, bay tree, Laurus nobilis, true laurel |
| (verb) bark with prolonged noises, of dogs | Synonyms: quest |
| (verb) utter in deep prolonged tones | - |
| baya | (noun) common Indian weaverbird | Synonyms: Ploceus philippinus |
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| bayat | (noun) an oath of allegiance to an emir | - |
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| bayberry | (noun) West Indian tree; source of bay rum | Synonyms: bay-rum tree, Jamaica bayberry, Pimenta acris, wild cinnamon |
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| (noun) deciduous aromatic shrub of eastern North America with grey-green wax-coated berries | Synonyms: candleberry, Myrica pensylvanica, swamp candleberry, waxberry |
| bayonet | (noun) a knife that can be fixed to the end of a rifle and used as a weapon | - |
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| (verb) stab or kill someone with a bayonet | - |
| bayou | (noun) a swampy arm or slow-moving outlet of a lake (term used mainly in Mississippi and Louisiana) | - |
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| bazaar | (noun) a sale of miscellany; often for charity | Synonyms: fair |
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| (noun) a shop where a variety of goods are sold | Synonyms: bazar |
| (noun) a street of small shops (especially in Orient) | Synonyms: bazar |
| bazar | (noun) a shop where a variety of goods are sold | Synonyms: bazaar |
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| (noun) a street of small shops (especially in Orient) | Synonyms: bazaar |
| bazillion | (noun) a very large indefinite number (usually hyperbole) | Synonyms: billion, gazillion, jillion, million, trillion, zillion |
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| bazooka | (noun) a portable rocket launcher used by infantrymen as an antitank weapon | - |
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| beachball | (noun) large and light ball; for play at the seaside | Synonyms: beach ball |
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| beanbag | (noun) a small cloth bag filled with dried beans; thrown in games | - |
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| beanball | (noun) a baseball deliberately thrown at the batter's head | Synonyms: beaner |
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| beebalm | (noun) bushy perennial Old World mint having small white or yellowish flowers and fragrant lemon-flavored leaves; a garden escapee in northern Europe and North America | Synonyms: bee balm, garden balm, lemon balm, Melissa officinalis, sweet balm |
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| (noun) perennial aromatic herb of eastern North America having variously colored tubular flowers in dense showy heads | Synonyms: bee balm, bergamot mint, Monarda didyma, oswego tea |
| (noun) perennial herb of North America | Synonyms: bee balm, Monarda fistulosa |
| bellyband | (noun) a strap around the belly of a draft animal holding the shafts of a wagon | - |
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| (noun) a cloth band that is worn around the waist (as on infants until the navel has healed) | - |
| bilobate | (adjective) divided into two lobes | Synonyms: bilobated, bilobed |
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| bilobated | (adjective) divided into two lobes | Synonyms: bilobate, bilobed |
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| biofeedback | (noun) a training program in which a person is given information about physiological processes (heart rate or blood pressure) that is not normally available with the goal of gaining conscious control of them | - |
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| birchbark | (noun) a canoe made with the bark of a birch tree | Synonyms: birch bark, birchbark canoe |
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| birdbath | (noun) an ornamental basin (usually in a garden) for birds to bathe in | - |
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| blackball | (noun) the act of excluding someone by a negative vote or veto | Synonyms: barring |
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| (verb) expel from a community or group | Synonyms: ban, banish, cast out, ostracise, ostracize, shun |
| (verb) vote against; refuse to endorse; refuse to assent | Synonyms: negative, veto |
| bloodbath | (noun) indiscriminate slaughter | Synonyms: battue, bloodletting, bloodshed |
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| blowback | (noun) Blowback is a system of operation for self-loading firearms that obtains energy from the motion of the cartridge case as it is pushed to the rear by expanding gases created by the ignition of the propellant charge. | - |
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| (noun) misinformation resulting from the recirculation into the source country of disinformation previously planted abroad by that country's intelligence service | - |
| (noun) the backward escape of gases and unburned gunpowder after a gun is fired | Synonyms: backfire |
| blowball | (noun) any of several herbs of the genus Taraxacum having long tap roots and deeply notched leaves and bright yellow flowers followed by fluffy seed balls | Synonyms: dandelion |
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| blowbang | (noun) A sexual activity where fellatio is performed on multiple men | - |
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| bombard | (noun) a large shawm; the bass member of the shawm family | Synonyms: bombardon |
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| (verb) direct high energy particles or radiation against | - |
| (verb) address with continuously or persistently, as if with a barrage | Synonyms: barrage |
| (verb) throw bombs at or attack with bombs | Synonyms: bomb |
| (verb) cast, hurl, or throw repeatedly with some missile | Synonyms: pelt |
| bombardier | (noun) the member of a bomber crew responsible for using the bombsight and releasing the bombs on the target | - |
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| (noun) a noncommissioned officer in the British artillery | - |
| bombardment | (noun) the heavy fire of artillery to saturate an area rather than hit a specific target | Synonyms: barrage, barrage fire, battery, shelling |
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| (noun) an attack by dropping bombs | Synonyms: bombing |
| (noun) the act (or an instance) of subjecting a body or substance to the impact of high-energy particles (as electrons or alpha rays) | - |
| (noun) the rapid and continuous delivery of linguistic communication (spoken or written) | Synonyms: barrage, onslaught, outpouring |
| bombardon | (noun) a large shawm; the bass member of the shawm family | Synonyms: bombard |
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| (noun) a tuba that coils over the shoulder of the musician | Synonyms: helicon |
| bombast | (noun) pompous or pretentious talk or writing | Synonyms: blah, claptrap, fustian, rant |
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| bombastic | (adjective) ostentatiously lofty in style | Synonyms: declamatory, large, orotund, tumid, turgid |
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| bombastically | (adverb) in a grandiose manner | Synonyms: grandiosely |
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| (adverb) in a turgid manner | Synonyms: turgidly |
| bombazine | (noun) a twilled fabric used for dresses; the warp is silk and the weft is worsted | - |
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| 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 | - |
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| brandyball | (noun) a British candy flavored with brandy | - |
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| breadbasket | (noun) a basket for serving bread | - |
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| (noun) an enlarged and muscular saclike organ of the alimentary canal; the principal organ of digestion | Synonyms: stomach, tum, tummy |
| (noun) a geographic region serving as the principal source of grain | - |
| bribable | (adjective) capable of being corrupted | Synonyms: corruptible, dishonest, purchasable, venal |
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| brickbat | (noun) blunt criticism | - |
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| (noun) a fragment of brick used as a weapon | - |
| broadband | (adjective) responding to or operating at a wide band of frequencies | Synonyms: wideband |
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| (adjective) of or relating to or being a communications network in which the bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals (as for voice or data or video) | - |
| bubaline | (adjective) relating to or resembling a buffalo | - |
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| buckyball | (noun) a spheroidal fullerene; the first known example of a fullerene | Synonyms: buckminsterfullerene |
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| bugbane | (noun) a plant of the genus Cimicifuga having flowers in long racemes or panicles reported to be distasteful to insects | - |
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| (noun) North American plant having large leaves and yellowish green flowers growing in racemes; yields a toxic alkaloid used medicinally | Synonyms: American hellebore, Indian poke, Veratrum viride, white hellebore |
| bulbaceous | (adjective) producing or growing from bulbs | - |
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| bulbar | (adjective) involving the medulla oblongata | - |
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| bullbat | (noun) mainly nocturnal North American goatsucker | Synonyms: mosquito hawk, nighthawk |
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| busbar | (noun) an electrical conductor that makes a common connection between several circuits | Synonyms: bus |
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| bushbaby | (noun) agile long-tailed nocturnal African lemur with dense woolly fur and large eyes and ears | Synonyms: bush baby, galago |
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| butterball | (noun) small North American diving duck; males have bushy head plumage | Synonyms: Bucephela albeola, bufflehead, dipper |
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| (noun) a rotund individual | Synonyms: fat person, fatso, fatty, roly-poly |
| buyback | (noun) the act of purchasing back something previously sold | Synonyms: redemption, repurchase |
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| cabal | (noun) a plot to carry out some harmful or illegal act (especially a political plot) | Synonyms: conspiracy |
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| (noun) a clique (often secret) that seeks power usually through intrigue | Synonyms: camarilla, faction, junto |
| (verb) engage in plotting or enter into a conspiracy, swear together | Synonyms: complot, conjure, conspire, machinate |
| cabala | (noun) an esoteric or occult matter resembling the Kabbalah that is traditionally secret | Synonyms: cabbala, cabbalah, kabala, kabbala, kabbalah, qabala, qabalah |
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| cabalism | (noun) adherence to some extreme traditional theological concept or interpretation | Synonyms: kabbalism |
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| cabalist | (noun) an expert who is highly skilled in obscure or difficult or esoteric matters | Synonyms: kabbalist |
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| (noun) a member of a cabal | - |
| cabalistic | (adjective) having a secret or hidden meaning | Synonyms: cryptic, cryptical, kabbalistic, qabalistic, sibylline |
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| cabana | (noun) a small tent used as a dressing room beside the sea or a swimming pool | - |
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| cabaret | (noun) a series of acts at a night club | Synonyms: floor show, floorshow |
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| (noun) a spot that is open late at night and that provides entertainment (as singers or dancers) as well as dancing and food and drink | Synonyms: club, night club, nightclub, nightspot |
| cabasset | (noun) a metal helmet worn by common soldiers in the 16th century | Synonyms: morion |
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| cabassous | (noun) naked-tailed armadillo of tropical South America | Synonyms: Cabassous unicinctus, tatouay |
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| cabbage | (noun) any of various types of cabbage | Synonyms: chou |
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| (noun) any of various cultivars of the genus Brassica oleracea grown for their edible leaves or flowers | Synonyms: Brassica oleracea, cultivated cabbage |
| (noun) informal terms for money | Synonyms: boodle, bread, clams, dinero, dough, gelt, kale, lettuce, lolly, loot, lucre, moolah, pelf, scratch, shekels, simoleons, sugar, wampum |
| (verb) make off with belongings of others | Synonyms: abstract, filch, hook, lift, nobble, pilfer, pinch, purloin, snarf, sneak, swipe |
| cabbageworm | (noun) toxic green larva of a cabbage butterfly | Synonyms: Pieris rapae |
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| cabbala | (noun) an esoteric or occult matter resembling the Kabbalah that is traditionally secret | Synonyms: cabala, cabbalah, kabala, kabbala, kabbalah, qabala, qabalah |
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| cabbalah | (noun) an esoteric or occult matter resembling the Kabbalah that is traditionally secret | Synonyms: cabala, cabbala, kabala, kabbala, kabbalah, qabala, qabalah |
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| calaba | (noun) West Indian tree having racemes of fragrant white flowers and yielding a durable timber and resinous juice | Synonyms: Calophyllum calaba, Santa Maria tree |
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| calabash | (noun) bottle made from the dried shell of a bottle gourd | Synonyms: gourd |
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| (noun) a pipe for smoking; has a curved stem and a large bowl made from a calabash gourd | Synonyms: calabash pipe |
| (noun) tropical American evergreen that produces large round gourds | Synonyms: calabash tree, Crescentia cujete |
| (noun) round gourd of the calabash tree | - |
| (noun) Old World climbing plant with hard-shelled bottle-shaped gourds as fruits | Synonyms: bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria |
| calabazilla | (noun) perennial vine of dry parts of central and southwestern United States and Mexico having small hard mottled green inedible fruit | Synonyms: buffalo gourd, Cucurbita foetidissima, Missouri gourd, prairie gourd, prairie gourd vine, wild pumpkin |
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| callback | (noun) a request by the manufacturer of a defective product to return the product (as for replacement or repair) | Synonyms: recall |
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| cannibal | (noun) a person who eats human flesh | Synonyms: anthropophagite, anthropophagus, man-eater |
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| cannibalic | (adjective) marked by barbarity suggestive of a cannibal; rapaciously savage | - |
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| cannibalise | (verb) eat human flesh | Synonyms: cannibalize |
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| (verb) use parts of something to repair something else | Synonyms: cannibalize |