B
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /b/
ipa: /biː/
rhymes: -iː
Forms: form: Bs
Etymology: From abbreviations of various terms beginning with or containing the letter ‘B’.
* (billion): abbreviation of billion
* (cricket): abbreviation of balls
* (bitch): abbreviation of bitch
Senses: examples: text: $2.8 B
translation: two point eight billion dollars (i.e., $2,800,000,000)
english: two point eight billion dollars (i.e., $2,800,000,000)
bold_translation_offsets: 16
23
glosses: The quantity one billion (1,000,000,000), usually used to signify a sum of money.
glosses: The grade of pencil, “black”, that makes darker marks than grade HB but lighter marks than grade 2B; a pencil with soft lead.
examples: text: 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. e5 Ne4 5. Qxd4 d5 6. exd6 e.p. Nxd6 7. Bg5 Nc6 8. Qe3+ Be7 9. Nbd2 0-0 10. 0-0-0 Re8 11. Kb1 (=)
ref: 2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, page 23:
text: The correct answer is 1.Rxf6 Rxf6 2.Rf1 Raf8 3.Qg5 Kg7 4.Nh5+
Other sub-variations work, such as playing 2.Qg5 then 3.Rf1 or playing 4.Bxf6+ first before playing 5.Nh5+.
ref: 2023 August 12, GM Noël Studer, “Mastering Chess Puzzles: The Comprehensive Guide to Effective Problem Solving”, in Next Level Chess:
topics: board-games
chess
games
glosses: Abbreviation of bishop.
topics: ball-games
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: The number of balls faced by a batsman.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: Bass.
examples: text: I mean, some little B put in a protest because apparently a pineapple isn't strictly a flower.
ref: 2003, Gina Riley and Jane Turner, That's Unusual, Sydney: ABC Books, page 153:
glosses: Bastard.
examples: text: [quoting an ethnographer’s account:] He then called me a “dumb B” and hung up the phone. Meredith pauses, looks at Graciela, and says, “Okay, I need you to be as specific as you can, so that means you’re going to have to tell me what he called you, exactly.” […] Graciela grabs the pen and writes down, “Dumb Bitch.” […] Robert then arrived at my house that day to see our son and upon leaving said, “I’ll see you in court you Dumb B.”
ref: 2011 December 25, Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, Linda L. Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, Second Edition, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 99:
text: And then he looked again and she wasn’t there. So he probably thought, ‘Stupid B’. You know.
ref: 2016 May 23, Caron Lipman, Co-habiting with Ghosts: Knowledge, Experience, Belief and the Domestic Uncanny, Routledge, →ISBN, page 179:
text: Yo, I got this bad B coming from upsy. She just wanna bruck her back and give ucky.
ref: 2020 March 26, “Chucky”performed by Dezzie:
glosses: Bitch.
examples: text: You’re a fuckboy whose most used phrase is, "wag one b, wys?"[.] Pulling girls at Gravity Monday is the highlight of your week. You constantly send selfies flexing your muscles and showing off your ‘six pack.’
ref: 2018 October 8, Ruby Bloom, “What your favourite social media says about you”, in The Tab:
related: word: b
qualifier: chiefly African-American Vernacular
glosses: Abbreviation of blood or blud: used to address a friend, especially a male.
examples: text: Mind your Bs and Ts
[…] And if the combined efforts of macrophages, b cells and t cells are sufficient, the pathogen will be beaten back and eventually cleared from the body.
ref: 2020 May 2, “Leaving lockdown means understanding immune responses to the virus”, in The Economist:
topics: immunology
medicine
sciences
glosses: A B cell.