BALLAST

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does ballast mean? 

• BALLAST (noun)
  The noun BALLAST has 5 senses:

1. any heavy material used to stabilize a ship or airship

2. coarse gravel laid to form a bed for streets and railroads

3. an attribute that tends to give stability in character and morals; something that steadies the mind or feelings

4. a resistor inserted into a circuit to compensate for changes (as those arising from temperature fluctuations)

5. an electrical device for starting and regulating fluorescent and discharge lamps

  Familiarity information: BALLAST used as a noun is common.

• BALLAST (verb)
  The verb BALLAST has 1 sense:

1. make steady with a ballast

  Familiarity information: BALLAST used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BALLAST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any heavy material used to stabilize a ship or airship

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("ballast" is a kind of...):

material; stuff (the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object)

Derivation:

ballast (make steady with a ballast)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Coarse gravel laid to form a bed for streets and railroads

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("ballast" is a kind of...):

crushed rock; gravel (rock fragments and pebbles)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An attribute that tends to give stability in character and morals; something that steadies the mind or feelings

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("ballast" is a kind of...):

attribute (an abstraction belonging to or characteristic of an entity)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A resistor inserted into a circuit to compensate for changes (as those arising from temperature fluctuations)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

ballast; ballast resistor; barretter

Hypernyms ("ballast" is a kind of...):

resistance; resistor (an electrical device that resists the flow of electrical current)

Sense 5

Meaning:

An electrical device for starting and regulating fluorescent and discharge lamps

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

ballast; light ballast

Hypernyms ("ballast" is a kind of...):

electrical device (a device that produces or is powered by electricity)

• BALLAST (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they ballast    ... he / she / it ballasts   
Past simple: ballasted   
Past participle: ballasted   
-ing form: ballasting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make steady with a ballast

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "ballast" is one way to...):

brace; stabilise; stabilize; steady (support or hold steady and make steadfast, with or as if with a brace)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

ballast (any heavy material used to stabilize a ship or airship)

 Context examples 

He says he feels as if he 'could make a prosperous voyage now with me aboard as mate, and lots of love for ballast'.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargo—a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

There were many things to be brought up from the beach and stored in the outhouse—as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster-pots, bags of ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of assistance rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under weights that she was quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all sorts of unnecessary errands.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As there were nine boats all told, it meant that we should have plenty of water, and ballast as well, though there was the chance that the boat would be overloaded, what of the generous supply of other things I was taking.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Jo hardly knew her own MS. again, so crumpled and underscored were its pages and paragraphs, but feeling as a tender parent might on being asked to cut off her baby's legs in order that it might fit into a new cradle, she looked at the marked passages and was surprised to find that all the moral reflections—which she had carefully put in as ballast for much romance—had been stricken out.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)