ballast

plural ballasts

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

   “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.”

   2014 March 24, Adam Reed, “On the Carpet” (18:15 from the start), in Archer, season 5, episode 9, spoken by Dr. Algernop Krieger (Lucky Yates)

2. figurativelyuncountableusuallyAnything that steadies emotion or the mind.
3. uncountableusuallyCoarse gravel or similar material laid to form a bed for roads or railroads, or in making concrete; track ballast.
4. uncountableusuallybusinessA 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.
   1. uncountableusuallybusinessLoose stone or big gravel used to hold rails and tracks in place.
5. countableusuallybusinessdevice used for stabilizing current in an electric circuit (e.g. in a tube lamp supply circuit)
6. figurativelyuncountableusuallyThat which gives, or helps to maintain, uprightness, steadiness, and security.

   It [piety] is the right ballast of prosperity.

   a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, The Profitableness of Godliness

   1 more example

   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.

   2018 June 17, Barney Ronay, “Mexico’s Hirving Lozano stuns world champions Germany for brilliant win”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 Aug 2019

present singular third person ballasts · participle present ballasting · participle past ballasted · past ballasted

1. transitiveTo stabilize or load a ship with ballast.
2. transitiveTo lay ballast on the bed of a railroad track.

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

   1943 September and October, “Railway Construction and Operation at War Department Depots”, in Railway Magazine, page 262

   1 more example

   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!

   1948 September and October, W. S. Darby, “The Gold Coast Railway—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 287

3. transitiveTo weigh down with a ballast.

   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.

   1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 35