Ballast

Quick meaning: Ballast is a noun meaning (nautical) Heavy material that is placed in the hold of a ship (or in the gondola of a balloon), to provide stability.

Meaning

(nautical) Heavy material that is placed in the hold of a ship (or in the gondola of a balloon), to provide stability.

More Meanings

1. (figurative) Anything that steadies emotion or the mind.
2. Coarse gravel or similar material laid to form a bed for roads or railroads, or in making concrete; track ballast.
3. (countable, electricity, electronics) device used for stabilizing current in an electric circuit (e.g. in a tube lamp supply circuit)
4. (figurative) That which gives, or helps to maintain, uprightness, steadiness, and security.
5. (transitive) To stabilize or load a ship with ballast.
6. (transitive) To lay ballast on the bed of a railroad track.
7. (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.

Example Sentences

It [piety] is the right ballast of prosperity.

The task of a Railway Construction Company, R.E., is to lay and ballast the track; [...].

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.

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!

Word Forms

• ballasts
• ballasting
• ballasted

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include baggage, gravel, waters, drag, weight, mannequin.

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