Ballast vs Anchor - What's the difference?
ballast | anchor |
(nautical) Heavy material that is placed in the hold of a ship (or in the gondola of a balloon), to provide stability.
(figuratively) Anything that steadies emotion or the mind.
Coarse gravel or similar material laid to form a bed for roads or railroads, or in making concrete.
(construction) A material, such as aggregate or precast concrete pavers, which employs its mass and the force of gravity to hold single-ply roof membranes in place.
(countable, electronics) device used for stabilizing current in an electric circuit (e.g.in a tube lamp supply circuit)
(figurative) That which gives, or helps to maintain, uprightness, steadiness, and security.
* Barrow
File:Hsin-chu-1.jpg, Ballast provides a supporting bed for rail tracks
File:Magnetic Ballasts 1.jpg, Several typical styles of magnetic ballasts for fluorescent lamps
To stabilize or load a ship with ballast.
To lay ballast on the bed of a railroad track.
(label) A tool used to moor a vessel to the bottom of a sea or river to resist movement.
# Formerly a vessel would differentiate amongst the anchors carried as waist anchor'', ''best bower'', ''bower'', ''stream'' and ''kedge'' anchors, depending on purpose and, to a great extent, on mass and size of the anchor. Modern usage is ''storm anchor'' for the heaviest anchor with the longest rode, ''best bower'' or simply ''bower'' for the most commonly used anchor deployed from the bow, and ''stream'' or ''lunch hook for a small, light anchor used for temporary moorage and often deployed from the stern.
# (label) An iron device so shaped as to grip the bottom and hold a vessel at her berth by the chain or rope attached. (FM 55-501).
* , chapter=10
, title= (label) The combined anchoring gear (anchor, rode, and fittings such as bitts, cat, and windlass.)
Any instrument serving a purpose like that of a ship's anchor, such as an arrangement of timber to hold a dam fast; a device to hold the end of a bridge cable etc.; or a device used in metalworking to hold the core of a mould in place.
(label) A marked point in a document that can be the target of a hyperlink.
(label) An anchorman or anchorwoman.
(label) The final runner in a relay race.
(label) A superstore or other facility that serves as a focus to bring customers into an area.
* 2006 , Planning: For the Natural and Built Environment (issues 1650-1666, page 15)
(label) That which gives stability or security.
* Bible, (w) vi. 19
(label) A metal tie holding adjoining parts of a building together.
(label) Carved work, somewhat resembling an anchor or arrowhead; part of the ornaments of certain mouldings. It is seen in the echinus, or egg-and-anchor (called also egg-and-dart, egg-and-tongue) ornament.
One of the anchor-shaped spicules of certain sponges.
One of the calcareous spinules of certain holothurians, as in species of Synapta .
To hold an object, especially a ship or a boat to a fixed point.
To cast anchor; to come to anchor.
To stop; to fix or rest.
* Shakespeare
To provide emotional stability for a person in distress.
To perform as an anchorman.
In nautical terms the difference between ballast and anchor
is that ballast is heavy material that is placed in the hold of a ship (or in the gondola of a balloon), to provide stability while anchor is the combined anchoring gear (anchor, rode, and fittings such as bitts, cat, and windlass..In figurative terms the difference between ballast and anchor
is that ballast is that which gives, or helps to maintain, uprightness, steadiness, and security while anchor is that which gives stability or security.ballast
English
Noun
(en-noun)- It [piety] is the right ballast of prosperity.
Verb
(en verb)anchor
English
Alternative forms
* anchour (chiefly archaic)Noun
(en noun)Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=Men that I knew around Wapatomac didn't wear high, shiny plug hats, nor yeller spring overcoats, nor carry canes with ivory heads as big as a catboat's anchor , as you might say.}}
- Supermarkets have also had to adjust. Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda have put a much greater emphasis on developing smaller high street stores or becoming anchors for mixed-used regeneration schemes
- which hope we have as an anchor of the soul
Derived terms
* anchorage * anchor baby * screw anchor * weigh anchorVerb
(en verb)- Our ship (or the captain) anchored in the stream.
- My invention anchors on Isabel.
