balance

1. 1.

   bring into balance or equilibrium

   “She has to balance work and her domestic duties”

   “balance the two weights”

   Synonymsequilibrateequilibrizeequilibrise

   Antonymsunbalance

   Broadermatch

   Narrowercomplementcompensatecanceloffsettrim
2. 2.

   compute credits and debits of an account

   Broaderaccount
3. 3.

   hold or carry in equilibrium

   Synonymspoise

   Broaderhold

   Narrowerjuggle
4. 4.

   be in equilibrium

   “He was balancing on one foot”

   Broaderbe

Other forms of balance

plural

balances·

past tense

balanced·

present participle

balancing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about balance

What does balance mean?

balance means "a state of equilibrium". That is the primary sense; the word has 16 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in balance?

balance has 2 syllables: bal-ance. The stress falls on "bal". In IPA it is /ˈbæləns/.

What is another word for balance?

Close synonyms include proportion, proportionality, equilibrium, equipoise, counterbalance. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of balance?

The recorded antonyms are imbalance, unbalance.

Is balance a common word?

balance is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with balance?

3 words rhyme with balance. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.