Letter B

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http://www.oneletterwords.com/oneletter/tome.php?letter=b
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Strange & Unusual Dictionaries Home
	B in Print and Proverb (phrase)  Not to know B from a bull's foot: to be illiterate.  (in literature)  Fair as a text B in a copy-book [said of someone's face].    —William Shakespeare, Love's Labor's Lost, V.ii.42. (in literature)  B is parkgate.    —James Joyce, Ulysses. (in film)  the title of a ten-minute Spanish short film written and directed by Daniel Vázquez Salles.  Facts and Figures In the Middle Ages, a B was branded on a blasphemer's forehead.  Foreign Meanings n.  (French) ?tre marqué au b means to be one-eyed or hump-backed.  Set in the Middle Ages, The Hunchback of Notre Dame tells the story of Quasimodo, a grotesquely deformed bell ringer at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The French might have said of Quasimodo il est marqué au b, he is hump-backed.  n.  (Hebrew) the letter B is called beth, which means "a house."  Miscellaneous n.  any spoken sound represented by the letter.  <The sound vibration of the consonant B means "path, straight, sacred path."  —Joseph E. Rael, Tracks of Dancing Light: A Native American Approach to Understanding Your Name.> <Her eyes were puffy.  Her words were full of the sound of the letter b.  She watched Clarence while holding tissues to her nose.  —Tracy Kidder, Among Schoolchildren.> n.  a written representation of the letter.  <The villainous girlfriend turned all the way around to show off her [snowsuit] outfit from every angle.  Sunny looked up from her cooking and noticed that the letter B was sewn onto the back of it, along with the eye insignia.  —Lemony Snicket, The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 10).> n.  a device, such as a printer's type, for reproducing the letter.  n.  (slang) a word used to address a friend.  <Yo, chill b.  —The Rap Dictionary.> n.  a Roman numeral for 300.  n.  something arbitrarily designated B (e.g. a person, place, or other thing).  <B said that A is the spy.  —Raymond Smullyan, The Lady or the Tiger?.> adj.  a mediocre movie, usually low-budget.  <I learned the delirious pleasure of watching old 'B' movies in the dead of night.  —Eddie Muller, Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir.> <The film was among the first musical productions shot in CinemaScope and director Harry Horner, a B-Movie helmer who rose to create his only A-level production here, wonderfully fills the extra-wide screen during the kinetic dance interludes.  —Phil Hall, Film Threat.>  From a review of the 1954 musical-comedy film "New Faces." Music and Musicians (phrase)  The Three B's: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.  n.  the seventh note in a C-major musical scale.  n.  a written or printed representation of a musical note B.  n.  a string, key, or pipe tuned to the note B.  n.  the second section in a piece of music.  Scientific Matters n.  a class of vitamins including B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6 (pyridoxine), B12 (Cyanocobalamin).  <Vitamin B12 works with folic acid to build the genetic material of cells and produce blood cells in bone marrow.  It is also involved in the activities of some of the body's enzymes (substances that promote chemical reactions in the body) and helps maintain a healthy nervous system. ...  The best sources of vitamin B12 are organ meats.  Fish (especially sardines, herring, and oysters), lean meats, poultry, cheese, and eggs are also good sources.  The only known plant sources are yeast, alfalfa, and 2 Japanese seaweeds—wakame and kombu.  —American Medical Association.> n.  a blood type.  <Genes for types A and B are dominant, and will always be expressed.  Type O is recessive.  A child who inherits one A and one O gene will be type A.  Similarly, a child who inherits one B and one O gene will be type B.  If both an A and a B gene are passed on, a child will be type AB.  Only a child who inherits one O gene from each parent will be type O.  —Mayo Clinic.> n.  a person with type B blood.  n.  (electronics) susceptance.  n.  (electronics) a battery, as in "B supply."  n.  (chemistry) the symbol for the element boron in the Periodic Table.  n.  an event in the present caused by something in the past.  <[A] feeling of timelessness, the feeling that what we know as time is only the result of a naïve faith in causality--the notion that A in the past caused B in the present, which will cause C in the future, when actually A, B, and C are all part of a pattern that can be truly understood only by opening the doors of perception and experiencing it... in this moment... this supreme moment... this kairos.  —Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.> n.  a high-level perception of cosmic unity, beyond causality.  <[A]ctually A, B, and C are all part of a pattern that can be truly understood only by opening the doors of perception and experiencing it... in this moment... this supreme moment... this kairos.  —Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.> Seconds, Anyone? n.  the second in a series.  n.  the second letter of the alphabet.  <Reference to the biographies...  of all women singers whose name began with B.  —Georges Perec, Life: A User's Manual.> <[Outside her speech therapist's office, she] would do anything, anything to avoid the next word beginning with a b--and soon she was sputtering all over the place, and what a field day that psychiatrist had the next Saturday with the letter b and 'what it unconsciously signified to her.'  —Philip Roth, American Pastoral.> n.  a grade in school indicating "better than average."  n.  one graded with a B.  <a B student>  adj.  secondary, inferior.  Shapes and Sizes n.  a large size of shot.  n.  something having the shape of a B.  <The important thing is that there must be no restriction in the throat and that the lips must remain in the "B" shape as the air is expelled.  —Larry Hudson, Bandworld Magazine.> <The squat shirt-sleeved Jew whose tight belt cut his round belly into the letter B turned to the lime-streaked wop--squinted, saw that communication had failed.  —Henry Roth, Call It Sleep.> n.  a shoe width size (wider than A, narrower than B).  n.  a brassiere cup size.  Find dozens more B's in the upcoming print edition of the Dictionary of One Letter Words! Details forthcoming. TURN TO C's >

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