This page gathers the 9,098 dictionary entries belonging to the domain “Engineering”, as labelled by Wiktionary. Each word leads to its full entry: definitions, etymology, pronunciation, examples. Page 7 of 91: from “bar stock” to “bifid cipher”.
- bar stock noun Portions of metal (stock) in the form of bars, suitable for machining (such as turning) or fabrication (such as welding). It comes in…
- bare bones adj Describes a computer sold preassembled, but without certain essential components, such as a processor, memory, and hard drive.
- bare metal noun A runtime environment where little to no abstraction is available: usually employing a low-level programming language, without access to…
- bareword noun A sequence of text characters in source code that do not form a keyword nor part of a quoted string, and may potentially be interpreted in…
- barf verb Of a system: to fail.
- barfeeder noun A type of feed (feeder) for machine tools such as lathes, turning centers, and Swiss-turns, which holds multiple bars of bar stock and…
- barlow noun A Barlow lens.
- Barlow lens noun A diverging lens which, used in series with other optics in an optical system, increases the effective focal length of an optical system as…
- barnacle noun In electrical engineering, a change made to a product on the manufacturing floor that was not part of the original product design.
- barrel bomb noun A barrel filled with explosives, used as an improvised unguided bomb and dropped from a helicopter or airplane.
- barrel file noun A JavaScript or TypeScript module which does nothing except import various files and then export them together, for the convenience of…
- barrel roll noun An aerobatic flying maneuver in which the pilot causes the airplane to complete one loop in the same time that the airplane completes one…
- barrel shifter noun A digital circuit that can shift a word by a specified number of bits using only combinational logic, without any sequential logic.
- barreling noun A defect in which a testpiece is deformed into a barrel-like shape.
- barrelled adj Having a barrel or specified number of barrels.
- bascule noun The portion of a breech-loading firearm that pivots open in order to allow access to the chamber.
- base noun The name of the controlling terminal of a bipolar transistor (BJT).
- base 2 adj Synonym of binary (“concerning numbers and calculations using the binary number system”).
- base cap noun The part of a weapon that is attached to the base end of the barrel or casing and holds a firing pin.
- base communications noun Communications services, such as the installation, operation, maintenance, augmentation, modification, and rehabilitation of communications…
- base memory noun The first 640 kilobytes of RAM (random access memory) in an IBM-compatible PC.
- base metal noun The metal to be welded (rather than that used to weld).
- base station noun A radio receiver/transmitter that serves as the hub of the local wireless network, and may also be the gateway between a wired network and…
- base station subsystem noun that section of a GSM network which is responsible for transmitting radio signals to and receiving radio signals from a mobile phone
- base tunnel noun A tunnel driven through the base of a mountain pass, rather than through the upper slopes of the mountains.
- baseband noun The frequency range occupied by a message signal prior to modulation.
- BaseBean noun A foundational utility or base class (a JavaBean or data object) from which specialized classes inherit common properties and methods.
- baseline verb To provide a baseline for measurement.
- basher noun Before the days of pneumatic rivet guns, the member of a riveting team who hammered the rivet to upset the bucktail to form the field head…
- basic ignition timing noun The position of the crankshaft in relation to the top dead center when the piston is located at the top of the compression stroke.
- basic insulation level noun The maximum voltage that the insulation of an electrical device (such as a transformer) can withstand without breaking down.
- basilisk noun A type of large brass cannon.
- bat noun One or more of the Chinese technology companies Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.
- batch verb To handle a set of input data or requests as a batch process.
- batch process noun A series of commands or programs that are executed without human intervention; the execution of such a series.
- batch processing noun the execution of a series of programs on a computer, called jobs, without manual intervention
- baton noun A short stout club used primarily by policemen.
- batsman noun An officer who used a pair of hand-held bats to signal to aircraft as they came in to land on the flight deck.
- batter verb To flatten (metal) by hammering, so as to compress it inwardly and spread it outwardly.
- batteries-included adj Including all possible components required for full usability.
- battery noun A device used to power electric devices, consisting of one or more electrically connected electrochemical cells or (archaically)…
- battery pack noun A set of batteries or battery cells connected together to deliver a certain voltage, capacity, or power density, often with an integrated…
- battery-backed adj Of a device, using a battery to maintain operation when not powered by the main electrical supply (e.g. during a blackout).
- battle of the sexes noun A situation in which two people want to do different things, but do them together.
- baud noun A unit of data transmission symbol rate; the number of signalling events per second.
- bayonet noun A pin which plays in and out of holes made to receive it, and which thus serves to engage or disengage parts of the machinery.
- baz noun A metasyntactic variable used to stand for some unspecified entity; typically the third in a series after foo and bar.
- bazooka noun A shoulder-held rocket launcher used as an antitank weapon, developed by America during World War II and so-called from its resemblance to…
- BB noun Initialism of baseband.
- beach ball noun A spinning wait cursor in macOS.
- beachball verb To hang; to stop responding to user input; (used of Mac computers, where this is indicated by a spinning coloured cursor like a beach ball).
- beaconing noun A continuous signaling of error conditions on a LAN, or small packets on a wireless LAN (WLAN).
- beam verb To transmit, especially by direct wireless means such as infrared.
- bean choke noun A small, fixed flow-restriction device used inside a choke valve in oil and gas production systems to control the rate and pressure of…
- bear noun A portable punching machine.
- bearing noun A mechanical device that supports another part or reduces friction.
- beartrap noun A device that traps a probe on a rotorcraft, securing it to the helicopter deck of a vessel.
- beautify verb Synonym of pretty-print.
- bebugging noun A technique for measuring test coverage by adding bugs to a program and tasking the tester with finding them.
- bed noun The flat surface of a scanner on which a document is placed to be scanned.
- bed of nails noun A device for testing a chip, consisting of an array of spring-loaded pins.
- bedrock noun The solid rock found at some depth below the ground surface.
- beech noun An aircraft made by Beechcraft.
- beehive noun In Conway's Game of Life, a particular still life pattern with a rounded appearance.
- beep noun Synonym of bell (“bell character”).
- beerware noun Software that can be used under a relaxed licence, with the user encouraged to pay for the software by donating to its author enough money…
- behavioral subtyping noun A subtype relation of the form that each subtype object satisfies the specification of the supertype.
- beige box noun A device used in phreaking, technically equivalent to a telephone company lineman's handset: a telephone fitted with alligator clips to…
- bejmat noun A traditional Moroccan hand-molded clay tile, typically unglazed and rectangular, used for flooring and outdoor paving.
- bell noun The bell character.
- bell character noun A control character with the value seven (Unicode code point U+0007, ASCII 0x07), originally used to ring a bell on telegraphy equipment to…
- Bellman-Ford algorithm noun An algorithm that computes single-source shortest paths in a weighted digraph, capable (unlike the faster Dijkstra's algorithm) of handling…
- below the fold prep_phrase Far enough down that it is not likely to be visible in the initial display of a window or screen, such that the end user will probably have…
- belt noun A device that holds and feeds cartridges into a belt-fed weapon.
- belt track noun A continuous track used to propel vehicles that drive on difficult terrain.
- belt-fed adj Supplied with ammunition by means of a belt.
- belted cable noun A 3-phase power cable whose conductors are bunched together and isolated with oil-impregnated insulating paper.
- benchmark noun A computer program that is executed to assess the performance of the runtime environment.
- benevolent dictator for life noun The leader of an open-source software project, typically project founders, who retains the final say in disputes or arguments within the…
- bento noun A menu icon of nine squares in a grid.
- Beowulf cluster noun A cluster of standard personal computers linked by a local area network, usually on the order of 10 nodes.
- berth verb To use a device to bring (a spacecraft) into its berth or dock.
- Bessemer process noun The first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel, based on blowing air through molten pig iron to remove…
- beta verb To preliminarily release computer software for initial testing prior to final release.
- beta reduction noun One of the three rewrite rules of the lambda calculus, which states that the application of a lambda abstraction (λx.t) to a term s yields…
- beta testing noun A form of software testing, after the alpha testing stage, involving a limited audience of external users.
- beta version noun An early version of a program or application that contains most of the major features, but is not yet complete. Sometimes these versions…
- bevel gear noun A kind of gear in which the two wheels working together lie in different planes and have their teeth cut at right angles to the surfaces of…
- Bézier curve noun A type of parametric curve defined by a set of control points, two of which are the ends of the curve, while the others determine its shape.
- BFC noun big fucking capacitor - a high-voltage film capacitor suitable for use in power transmission, electric motor starters and applications…
- BFI noun Reliance on raw computing power (rather than, for example, an efficient algorithm).
- BFOD noun Best Fare of the Day
- bi-elliptic transfer noun A type of movement of a spacecraft from one orbit to another, in which the spacecraft first raises its apoapsis to an extremely high…
- bias verb To give a bias to.
- biased adj On which an electrical bias is applied.
- biaswise adv In terms of bias.
- bicartesian closed category noun A Cartesian closed category which also has an initial object and such that for any pair of objects, A and B, in the category, the category…
- bicycle gear noun Ellipsis of bicycle landing gear.
- bicycle landing gear noun A form of landing gear having the main gear and nosegear located fore and aft of the center of gravity under the fuselage with outriggers…
- bifid cipher noun A classical cipher that combines the Polybius square with transposition, and uses fractionation to achieve diffusion.