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say it: BAL-uhst
ballast is a noun and verb meaning "any heavy material used to stabilize a ship or airship". It carries 6 recorded senses.
any heavy material used to stabilize a ship or airship
coarse gravel laid to form a bed for streets and railroads
an attribute that tends to give stability in character and morals; something that steadies the mind or feelings
a resistor inserted into a circuit to compensate for changes (as those arising from temperature fluctuations)
an electrical device for starting and regulating fluorescent and discharge lamps
make steady with a ballast
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.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for ballast come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.