ballast
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: business
construction
electrical-engineering
electricity
electromagnetism
electronics
energy
engineering
manufacturing
natural-sciences
nautical
physical-sciences
physics
railways
transport
Etymology: From Middle English bar (“bare”) + last (“load”).
Inflected forms:
form: ballasts
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: ballasts
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: ballasting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: ballasted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: ballasted
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Heavy material that is placed in the hold of a ship (or in the gondola of a balloon), to provide stability.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
usually
examples: “Oh, for the-- how much did you waste on that little boondoggle?” “Well, it's not that so much as--” “Krieger.” “Well, I needed ballast, and what better to simulate bricks of cocaine than, you know, bricks of cocaine.”
gloss: Anything that steadies emotion or the mind.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
uncountable
usually
gloss: Coarse gravel or similar material laid to form a bed for roads or railroads, or in making concrete; track ballast.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
usually
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
usually
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
usually
gloss: device used for stabilizing current in an electric circuit (e.g. in a tube lamp supply circuit)
pos: noun
tags: countable
usually
gloss: That which gives, or helps to maintain, uprightness, steadiness, and security.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
uncountable
usually
examples: With 73 minutes gone Rafael Márquez came on to add ballast at the back, appearing in his fifth World Cup aged 39 and with alleged links to drug trafficking, which he denies, on hold for now. And so they sat deep with a thin green line of five defenders ranged across their own penalty area as the game became a Mexican stand-off, attack versus defence.
It [piety] is the right ballast of prosperity.
gloss: To stabilize or load a ship with ballast.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To lay ballast on the bed of a railroad track.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The task of a Railway Construction Company, R.E., is to lay and ballast the track; [...].
Although the track is ballasted, it does not prevent clouds of reddish dust from the laterite soil blowing about when the train is in motion; after a journey with the windows open a bath is a necessity!
gloss: To weigh down with a ballast.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The noosance was […] that to make the umbrella effective he would have to carry abroad such weight to ballast it as would put the whole contraption out of action for carrying abroad at all.
Derived words: autoballaster
ballastage
ballast car
ballastless
ballastmaster
ballast resistor
ballast tank
ballast wagon
deballast
in ballast
in ballast condition
overballast
success ballast
unballast
unballasted
water ballast
ballast up
reballast
reballasting
Translations: