ballast
IPA: bˈæɫʌst
noun
- (nautical) Heavy material that is placed in the hold of a ship (or in the gondola of a balloon), to provide stability.
- (figuratively) Anything that steadies emotion or the mind.
- Coarse gravel or similar material laid to form a bed for roads or railroads, or in making concrete; track ballast.
- (construction) A material, such as aggregate or precast concrete pavers, which employs its mass and the force of gravity to hold single-ply roof membranes in place.
- (countable, electricity, electronics) device used for stabilizing current in an electric circuit (e.g. in a tube lamp supply circuit)
- (figurative) That which gives, or helps to maintain, uprightness, steadiness, and security.
verb
- To stabilize or load a ship with ballast.
- To lay ballast on the bed of a railroad track.
- To weigh down with a ballast.
Advertisement
Examples of "ballast" in Sentences
- The ballast controls the current to the bulb.
- The track and ballast form the permanent way.
- Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit.
- The AC ballast was about the size of a building brick.
- In Europe, the piston tank is the ballast system of choice.
- Actually, in one definition, ballast is material which will:
- The columns would terminate in ballast tanks below the surface.
- However, the Ballast Pond was part of the dockyard at the time.
- The keel is molded as part of the hull and the ballast is poured in.
- The second jumps into a ballast tank to escape the fiery outreach of the demon.
- The German commander ordered the ballast tanks blown and the submarine went up.
- Update: A commenter quotes one of the definitions for ballast from the Oxford English Dictionary as: 3.
- Id recommend having two bottles on hand for four people at a dinner party, then having a decent third wine in reserve, what I call ballast.
- Truth be told, I could make a better public case for Ayers’s involvement by a discussion of the word ballast than I could by sharing these results.
- When this happens, ETFs can provide some short-term ballast for rebalancing, such as moving cash or selling one investment to move back toward another.
- From the Marquesas I sailed with sufficient absinthe in ballast to last me to Tahiti, where I outfitted with Scotch and American whisky, and thereafter there were no dry stretches between ports.
- On this occasion as usual we came to the surface and we were lying there trimmed down (the main ballast roughly two-thirds full), just floating, when the signalman who was up on the bridge with me remembered he had not brought up any cigarettes.