Word.ws English Dictionary

balancing

balancing is the present participle and gerund of balance.

Meaning of balance

Verb

balance (third-person singular simple present balances, present participle balancing, simple past and past participle balanced)

  1. (transitive) To bring (items) to an equipoise, as the scales of a balance by adjusting the weights.
    Synonyms:
    equilibrate
    1. (intransitive, reflexive, transitive) To move while remaining balanced on a narrow or precarious support (e.g., a wire, ledge or rope).
      • She balanced along the wire while the crowd watched in rapt attention.
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To make (concepts) agree.
    • the Proteus Principle helps to qualify and balance the concepts of narrators and of narrative situations as previously developed in classical studies by G erard Genette and Franz Stanzel.2014, Peter Melville Logan, Olakunle George, Susan Hegeman, The Encyclopedia of the Novel
  3. (transitive) To hold (an object or objects) precariously; to support on a narrow base, so as to keep from falling.
    • I balanced my mug of coffee on my knee.
  4. (transitive) To compare in relative force, importance, value, etc.; to estimate.
    • Ballance the Good and Evil of Things.1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC
  5. (transitive) To move toward, and then back from, reciprocally.
    • to balance partners

See all 25 meanings of balance

Noun

balancing (plural balancings)

  1. An action wherein someone balances or something is balanced
    • In other places of the holy writings the Almighty is described as weighing the mountains in scales, making the weight for the winds, knowing the balancings of the clouds; and, in others, as weighing the actions of men, and laying their calamities together in a balance.1886, Ministry of Education, The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886
    • And he locked her up all day in her room doing her balancings, the boomerang on the front wheel, the standstill on the back-wheel, or the bike upside down, with Lily standing on the pedals, like a convict on the tread-mill.1909, Andre Castaigne, The Bill-Toppers

Forms of balancing

pluralbalancings

Words formed from balancing

Phrases with balancing

Questions about balancing

What does balancing mean?
Balancing means an action wherein someone balances or something is balanced.
What is balancing the present participle and gerund of?
Balancing is the present participle and gerund of balance.
What part of speech is balancing?
Balancing is a noun.
What is the plural of balancing?
The plural of balancing is balancings.

Words near balancing in the dictionary

  1. balanceth
  2. balanceweight
  3. balanceweights
  4. balancewise
  5. Balanchinian
  6. balancing
  7. balancing act
  8. balancing acts
  9. balancing out
  10. balancing the books
  11. balancing the sheets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: balancing (page history and authors); balance (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “balancing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/balancing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.