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.
Related Words
Relevance
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of ballast
Aikido's system uses a passive primary cooling mechanism that transfers heat from the data centers through the steel walls of the ballast tanks and directly into the surrounding seawater, with the company claiming the thermal impact on the ocean is limited to a few meters around the structure.
—
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
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.
—ABC News, 12 Mar. 2026
The crew reports that a port ballast tank is losing water which suggests some form of hull breach but the ship remains stable and safely afloat.
—CBS News, 5 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for ballast
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
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.
—ABC News, 12 Mar. 2026
The crew reports that a port ballast tank is losing water which suggests some form of hull breach but the ship remains stable and safely afloat.
—CBS News, 5 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for ballast
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ballast
Noun
-
The close call comes just months after a UPS cargo crash at the same airport that killed 15 people.—
Michael Dorgan,
FOXNews.com,
17 Apr. 2026
-
But, at one point, a crewman on a what looked like a cargo ship raised his hand.—
Sohel Uddin,
CBS News,
17 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
Later, the host dons a hard hat to tour a multi-billion-dollar, decades-long project that will ease freight and passenger train bottlenecks with new bridges and underpasses.—
Philip Potempa,
Chicago Tribune,
16 Apr. 2026
-
Sahai echoed the concern, noting that outside the Middle East, exporters were absorbing much of the increase in freight costs, with only part of it passed on to importers.—
Priyanka Salve,
CNBC,
16 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
For out-of-state students like GSU sophomore Solei Green, the 3% increase adds to an already heavy financial load.—
La'Tasha Givens,
CBS News,
16 Apr. 2026
-
As trucks roared up the landfill and dumped fresh loads of trash, adults and children alike rushed forward, gathering beneath cascading avalanches of waste to grab anything of value.—
CNN Money,
CNN Money,
15 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
Harsha added that the CRA is concerned the agency will or has already begun front-loading its grant funding to catch up on spending, doling out the full amount of a grant instead of distributing it over the course of a number of years.—
Fiona Bork,
The Hill,
19 Apr. 2026
-
On a Wednesday morning at rush hour, the truck eased out of a loading dock and headed for the Interstate.—
Michael Kaplan,
CBS News,
19 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
This was the 22nd flight for the first-stage booster, but had no recovery because of extra power needed to get the payload to its destination.—
Richard Tribou,
The Orlando Sentinel,
19 Apr. 2026
-
Blue Origin confirmed New Glenn’s upper stage missed its aim and released its payload, a cellular broadband communications satellite for AST SpaceMobile, into an inaccurate orbit.—
Stephen Clark,
ArsTechnica,
19 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
-
If that’s true, the entire psychological burden of the piece has been distilled into that one strained digit.—
Zachary Fine,
New Yorker,
20 Apr. 2026
-
These parasites reveal what sanitation, disease burden, and population health were really like in this region of the Roman Empire, known for its ingenuity and innovation, but sometimes, public health might not be up to par.—
Maria Mocerino,
Interesting Engineering,
19 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 21 Apr. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
