Word.ws English Dictionary

water ballast

water ballast noun: a weight in the form of seawater that can be let or pumped into a ballast tank within a vessel when required.

Noun

water ballast (uncountable)

  1. A weight in the form of seawater that can be let or pumped into a ballast tank within a vessel when required.
    • Thanks to the previous experience of the chief performers, to careful preparation and rehearsal, and to perfect weather conditions, they watched in breath-bated silence the spectacle of the huge bulk moving without a hitch into position over the temporary pier caps on which it settled as water...1959 May, L. T. C. Rolt, “Centenary of the Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash”, in Railway Magazine, page 310

Questions about water ballast

What does water ballast mean?
Water ballast means a weight in the form of seawater that can be let or pumped into a ballast tank within a vessel when required.
What part of speech is water ballast?
Water ballast is a noun.

Words near water ballast in the dictionary

  1. water bailies
  2. water bailiff
  3. water bailiffs
  4. water balance
  5. water balances
  6. water ballast
  7. water ballet
  8. water ballets
  9. water balloon
  10. water balloons
  11. Water Banquet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: water ballast (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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