ballast
pronunciation
How to pronounce ballast in British English:
UK [ˈbæləst]
How to pronounce ballast in American English:
US [ˈbæləst]
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- Noun:
- any heavy material used to stabilize a ship or airship
- coarse gravel laid to form a bed for streets and railroads
- an attribute that tends to give stability in character and morals; something that steadies the mind or feelings
- a resistor inserted into a circuit to compensate for changes (as those arising from temperature fluctuations)
- an electrical device for starting and regulating fluorescent and discharge lamps
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- Verb:
- make steady with a ballast
Word Origin
- ballast
- ballast: [16] Originally, ballast appears to have meant literally ‘bare load’ – that is, a load carried by a ship simply for the sake of its weight, and without any commercial value. English probably acquired it, via Low German, from a Scandinavian language; Old Swedish and Old Danish had not only ballast but also barlast, which appears to betray the word’s component parts: bar, related to English bare, and last ‘burden’ (Old English had hlæst ‘burden’, related to lade, which survived into the 20th century as a measure of weight for various commodities).=> bare, lade
- ballast (n.)
- "heavy material used to steady a ship," 1520s, from Middle English bar "bare" (see bare; in this case "mere") + last "a load, burden," or borrowed from identical terms in North Sea Germanic and Scandinavian (compare Old Danish barlast, 14c.). "Mere" because not carried for commercial purposes. Dutch balg-last "ballast," literally "belly-load," is a folk-etymology corruption.
Example
- 1. He said styrofoam ballast kept the debris afloat as it crossed the open sea .
- 2. These tiny birds weigh around a kilogram and are shot up in lieu of ballast or in empty nooks and crannies on full-blown satellite launch missions .
- 3. This means that teams with kers have less ballast to move around the car and hence have less freedom to vary their car 's weight distribution .
- 4. At sea , meanwhile , on any day it is estimated that around 3000 species of aquatic animals and plants are being carried around the world in ballast .
- 5. Then the sound of rumbling thunder reached the watchers on the shore , as cargo , ballast , ammunition and 400 people went sliding and crashing down to the port side of the steeply listing ship .