Etymology

ballast

B3A1L1L1A1S1T1

Today it means: Heavy material that is placed in the hold of a ship (or in the gondola of a balloon), to provide stability. Full definition →

Middle English bar
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The story

  1. Middle English · derived frombar“bare”
  2. English todayballast

From Middle English bar (“bare”) + last (“load”).

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishbar all →

barling

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.