as in cargo
heavy material (such as rocks or water) that is put on a ship to make it steady or on a balloon to control its height in the air
—often used figuratively
A large amount of ballast kept the boat from capsizing. She provided the ballast the family needed in times of stress.
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Recent Examples of ballast
With massive, deep-V hulls and ballast systems that add thousands of pounds, these boats are designed to displace large amounts of water and generate huge waves for wakeboarders and wakesurfers.
—
Dac Collins, Outdoor Life, 2 Apr. 2026
The railroad will also replace four grade crossing surfaces in Wethersfield, replace ties, switch ties with ballast and surfacing.
—Sean Krofssik, Hartford Courant, 15 Mar. 2026
The end of each leg contains a ballast that extends to around 20 meters (65 ft) deep.
—Etiido Uko
march 13, New Atlas, 13 Mar. 2026
Other items from the ship, including the ballasts that served as counterweights for the human cargo, are remaining on display and will be returned to South Africa in two years.
—Arkansas Online, 13 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for ballast
Dac Collins, Outdoor Life, 2 Apr. 2026
The railroad will also replace four grade crossing surfaces in Wethersfield, replace ties, switch ties with ballast and surfacing.
—Sean Krofssik, Hartford Courant, 15 Mar. 2026
The end of each leg contains a ballast that extends to around 20 meters (65 ft) deep.
—Etiido Uko
march 13, New Atlas, 13 Mar. 2026
Other items from the ship, including the ballasts that served as counterweights for the human cargo, are remaining on display and will be returned to South Africa in two years.
—Arkansas Online, 13 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for ballast
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ballast
Noun
-
Brent oil futures prices have averaged around $100 in April, while the spot price for the delivery of actual cargo has hovered closer to $121 per barrel.—
Spencer Kimball,
CNBC,
24 Apr. 2026
-
Mynor López was a part of a road maintenance crew filling potholes when the bridge collapsed after being hit by a cargo vessel.—
Ximena Bustillo,
NPR,
24 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
But the new traffic data the railroads analyzed from all the major freight railroads convinced executives that more job growth is likely.—
Josh Funk,
Chicago Tribune,
30 Apr. 2026
-
Delivered to Union Pacific in 1941, the locomotive was among 25 built to haul wartime freight across the Continental Divide in Wyoming and Utah.—
Trevor Hughes,
USA Today,
29 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
Managing the ins and outs of a family’s life is no small task, but fortunately, these mothers no longer have to manage this mental load on their own.—
William Jones,
USA Today,
29 Apr. 2026
-
Engineers can simulate movements, loads, and environmental conditions before real deployment.—
Aamir Khollam,
Interesting Engineering,
29 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
The port of Fujairah (the end-point of the UAE pipeline) also came under attack from Iranian drones, disrupting oil loading operations at its crude export terminal.—
Holly Ellyatt,
CNBC,
23 Apr. 2026
-
Use a front-loading washing machine or a top-loading washing machine without an agitator.—
Katie Cloyd,
Martha Stewart,
22 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
SpaceX early on in the rocket’s career gave up trying to recover the center stage on Falcon Heavy flights, so that middle booster will instead fall into the Atlantic after its finishes the job of pushing the ViaSat payload on its way to a geosynchronous transfer orbit.—
Richard Tribou,
The Orlando Sentinel,
26 Apr. 2026
-
The idea would be for robots like it to construct structures in low-to-zero gravity that are normally too large to carry as a payload in rockets or other spacecraft.—
Christopher McFadden,
Interesting Engineering,
25 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
Cargill built a large soybean-lading facility at Santarem, some 500 miles up the Amazon.—
Edward Lotterman,
Twin Cities,
4 Jan. 2026
-
One example can be as simple as shipments that are missing bills of lading or origin documents.—
Forbes,
Forbes,
1 June 2021
Noun
-
An alternative would be a one-time tax increase, placing a significant financial burden on Chicagoans in a single year — clearly an unacceptable approach.—
Chicago Tribune,
Chicago Tribune,
26 Apr. 2026
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What changed was not her income, but her energy burden.—
Ed Gaskin,
Boston Herald,
26 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
By integrating turbine and ramjet technologies, a concept dating back to the end of World War II, the scientists removed the inactive deadweight and simplified the model.—
Georgina Jedikovska,
Interesting Engineering,
31 Mar. 2026
-
The university that once promised to buoy scientific aspirations now feels like a deadweight.—
Katherine J. Wu,
The Atlantic,
16 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ballast.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ballast. Accessed 2 May. 2026.
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