ballast

Etymology

The origin is disputed.^[2][3][4] It is probably borrowed from Middle Low German ballast,^{[5][6][7][4][8][9]} recorded from the second half of the 14th century; the OED also allows Dutch ballast (1399) or Middle French ballast (1375) as the source.^[2] Equivalent forms spread through many European languages in the late Middle Ages, probably through Baltic trade under the Hanseatic League; the OED finds the priority among them unclear.^[2] The oldest record appears to be the Old Swedish past participle barlastadh (“loaded with ballast”) (before 1352),^[2] and barlast and Old Danish barlast are often taken as the ultimate source:^{[2][5][10][11][12]} a compound of bar (“bare, mere”), related to bare, and last (“load, cargo”), related to the English noun last, with rl assimilated to ll.^{[2][10][11][6]} On this view it was a "bare load", carried only for its weight and with no commercial value.^{[10][5][9][3]} The opposite view takes the Low German word as the original, from bal (“bad”) and last (“load”), and the Scandinavian forms beginning with bar as folk etymology, but the OED notes that the dates of the records do not support it.^[2] Weekley also thought of Low German bal (“worthless”), as in Dutch balsturig (“cross, perverse”),^[13] and Skeat, on the contrary, held that the Low German form arose from the Scandinavian one.^[14] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford add the possibility of barm (“bosom; hull of a ship”) as the first element.^[4][7] Etymonline allows that the word may instead have been formed in English from bar (“bare, mere”) and last (“load, burden”).^[3] Later folk etymology remodelled it as Danish baglast (“back load”) (1622) and Dutch balglast (“belly load”) (17th century).^[2][14][3] Johnson derived it from Dutch.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

Heavy material placed in a ship's hold to keep it steady: 1486, in the naval accounts of Henry VII.^[2] Barnhart's first record is in Palsgrave's dictionary (1530),^[5] Etymonline dates the word to the 1520s,^[3] and the Shorter Oxford to the mid 16th century.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense, something that gives moral or intellectual steadiness, is recorded from 1612, in Bacon's Essays;^[2][13] Bacon wrote that solid and sober natures have more of the ballast than of the sail.^[13] In the 16th and 17th centuries the verb also meant to load or burden (from 1566), and between 1611 and 1697 to balance, probably through confusion with balance.^[2][13] The same material used on land gave the senses of gravel or broken stone for roads (1701), for the bed of a railway (1831) and for making concrete (1839),^[2][13] while ballast for balloons, sand or water dropped to rise, is recorded from Franklin in 1784.^[2] The electrical sense, a component that keeps the current steady, appears in 1896, probably after German Ballast.^[2] In slang, ballast was heavy food or too much drink (1821) and money (1832).^[16]

Timeline

• 1486 – heavy material that steadies a ship.^[2] Barnhart dates it to 1530.^[5]
• 1538 – verb, to provide a ship with ballast.^[2][6]
• 1566 – verb, to load or weigh down.^[2]
• 1592 – in ballast, in a ship's hold (obsolete by 1866).^[2]
• 1612 – figurative, stability or steadiness of mind, in Bacon.^[2]
• 1691 – in ballast, of a ship carrying only ballast.^[2]
• 1701 – gravel or broken stone for roads and embankments.^[2]
• 1784 – sand or water carried by a balloon.^[2]
• 1821 – slang, heavy food or drink.^[16]
• 1831 – broken stone forming the bed of a railway.^[2]
• 1896 – a resistor that stabilizes an electric current.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Heavy material placed in a ship, balloon or airship to keep it steady or control its height.^[6][9][2]
2. Crushed rock or gravel forming the bed of a railway or road.^[9][2]
3. Coarse sandy gravel used in making concrete.^[9][2]
4. Anything that gives steadiness or weight, especially of mind or character: Her calm good sense was the ballast of the team.^[9][2]
5. A device, such as a resistor, that keeps the current in an electric circuit steady.^[9][2]
6. in ballast: of a ship, carrying ballast but no cargo.^[2]

Verb

1. To provide with ballast, or steady with it: They ballasted the dinghy with sandbags.^[6][9][2]
2. To give steadiness to the mind, conduct or morals of.^[6][2]
3. To fill a railway bed with ballast.^[6][2]
4. (archaic) To weigh down or burden.^[6][2]

Word family

• ballaster
• unballasted
• overballast
• underballast
• ballast resistor

Related words

• bare
• last
• lade
• balance

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b c d e Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com