English Words: B

31,241 words · Page 47 of 625

Balkanophobiaadj

Showing fear or hatred of the Balkans or its people.

Balkansname

A cultural region and peninsula in Southeast Europe, roughly equivalent to the area covered by Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, sometimes including Romania, Slovenia, and European Turkey.

Balkaranname

A surname.

Balkename

A surname.

balkernoun

Someone or something that balks; a naysayer.

balkestverb

second-person singular simple present indicative of balk

balkethverb

third-person singular simple present indicative of balk

Balkhname

A town in Balkh, province of Afghanistan, historically an ancient city and centre of Buddhism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism and capital of Bactria.

balkienoun

A small bar worn as part of the uniform of some soldiers in the South African military.

balkilyadv

In a balky manner.

Balkinname

A surname.

balkinessnoun

The state or quality of being balky or uncooperative.

balkingverb

present participle and gerund of balk

balkinglyadv

in a balking manner

balkishadj

uneven; ridgy

balklinenoun

Alternative form of baulk line.

Balkwillname

A surname from Old English.

balkyadj

Refusing to proceed or cooperate.

ballnoun

A solid or hollow sphere, or roughly spherical mass.

ball alleynoun

A place for playing handball, ranging in structure from a patch of hard flat ground beside a gable to an indoor four-walled court similar to a squash court.

ball and chainnoun

A heavy iron ball attached to a prisoner's leg by a chain as a means of restraint.

ball and sticknoun

A style of handwriting in which the letters are not joined and feature straight lines and circular arcs; block letters.

ball capnoun

Alternative form of ballcap.

ball claynoun

A type of clay that commonly consists of 20-80% kaolinite, 10-25% mica, and 6-65% quartz.

ball clickernoun

A mechanism that uses ball bearings which fall into an indentation to create a clicking noise when an adjustment knob is turned to a correct position.

ball de bastonsnoun

A Iberian weapon dance involving sticks, similar to morris dancing.

ball dropnoun

A world-famous tradition when a large, illuminated crystal ball descends a flagpole from midnight to mark the new year; most commonly associated with the New Year's Eve event in New York's Times Square; a ritual inspired by maritime time ball signals that began in 1907 and has evolved into a massive global event with music and sizable crowds.

ball gagnoun

A gag with a rubber or silicone sphere that is strapped into the mouth behind the teeth.

ball gamenoun

Any game played with a ball.

ball hockeynoun

A form of hockey similar to ice hockey, played on foot on a hard surface (typically a hockey rink with a concrete surface), using a hard plastic ball in place of a hockey puck.

ball hognoun

In team sports, a player who keeps the ball to themselves, rather than passing it.

ball lightningnoun

A short-lived glowing ball sometimes observed to float in the air and thought to consist of ionized gas associated with thunderstorms.

ball of firenoun

A person who is especially active, ambitious, hard-working, or high-achieving.

ball of fluffnoun

Synonym of fluffball (“creature that resembles a ball of fluff”).

ball of maltnoun

A glass of whiskey.

ball offverb

To depart, especially quickly; to hurry away; to leave at a particular speed.

ball outverb

To play or perform extremely well.

ball playernoun

A player of a ball game; especially a basketball, baseball, or football player.

ball upverb

To crush or form into a ball shape.

Ball's pipefishnoun

Cosmocampus balli, a fish of the family Syngnathidae, endemic to Hawaii.

Ball's Pyramidname

An erosional remnant of a shield volcano and caldera, near Lord Howe Island in the Pacific Ocean.

ball-breakernoun

A person or task which is excessively demanding or punishing.

ball-bustverb

To attack or harm the testicles of; to engage in ballbusting.

ball-busternoun

Synonym of ball-breaker.

ball-goernoun

One who attends a ball.

ball-gownedadj

Wearing a ball gown.

ball-hawkingnoun

An act of catching or obtaining possession of the ball in a skillful manner; the action of a ball hawk.

ball-lessadj

Without balls (testicles).

ball-likeadj

Characteristic of a ball.

ball-peen hammernoun

A hammer having, besides the normal flat head, an opposite, rounded or peening head.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English alphabetical index for the letter B contains 31,241 headwords drawn from our Wiktionary-derived dictionary table. At 50 entries per page the browse splits into 625 pages, and you are currently viewing page 47. Every row above is a dictionary-backed entry with a canonical slug, and each links through to a full definition page with pronunciation, senses, etymology, and related-word data where available.

On this page 50 of 50 entries carry a part-of-speech tag and 50 carry at least one stored definition. Coverage varies across letters because Wiktionary volunteers build entries at different speeds for different parts of the alphabet, letters with common starting sounds (S, C, T, P) usually have the densest coverage, while less frequent starters (X, Q, Z) tend to have shorter but more specialised lists. PlainSpell surfaces whatever data is present and links back to the source when a definition is not yet recorded.

For readers using this index as a spelling reference, the guarantee is that every form you see on the list is a documented English headword, not a guess, not a derived inflection lacking a lemma row. If a word you expected to find is absent from the "B" list, it usually means the form exists only as an inflection of another lemma (e.g. a past participle stored under the infinitive) or the entry has not yet been imported from Wiktionary. Use the search bar or the misspelling lookup to resolve these cases.