balance
/ˈbæləns/ verb B2- To bring (items) to an equipoise, as the scales of a balance by adjusting the weights.
- 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.· They must balance themselves down the fence until they reach the end.
- To make (concepts) agree.
- 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.· The circus performer balances a plate on the end of a baton.
- To compare in relative force, importance, value, etc.; to estimate.
- To move toward, and then back from, reciprocally. · to balance partners
- To contract, as a sail, into a narrower compass. · to balance the boom mainsail
- To make the credits and debits of (an account) correspond. · to balance a set of books· This final payment, or credit, balances the account.
Plural balance · He/she/it balances · Past balanced · Past participle balanced · -ing form balancing
Verb forms
- Base form
- balance
- He/she/it
- balances
- Past
- balanced
- Past participle
- balanced
- -ing form
- balancing
Phrasal verbs and expressions
From the library
It looks very funny, but it is so perfectly balanced a gait that you can fly off from it at any angle you please, and in dealing with snakes this is an advantage.
“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose— What made you so awfully clever?”
Anne climbed the ladder amid breathless silence, gained the ridgepole, balanced herself uprightly on that precarious footing, and started to walk along it, dizzily conscious that she was uncomfortably high up in the world and that walking ridgepoles was not a thing in which your imagination helped you out much.
Then she swayed, lost her balance, stumbled, staggered, and fell, sliding down over the sun-baked roof and crashing off it through the tangle of Virginia creeper beneath--all before the dismayed circle below could give a simultaneous, terrified shriek.
Other matches
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