KING JAMES BIBLE DICTIONARY

Playing at
Isaiah 22:18

BALL, noun [Latin pila; A ball may signify a mass from collecting, or it may be that which is driven, from the root of Latin pello; probably the former.]

1. A round body; a spherical substance, whether natural or artificial; or a body nearly round; as, a ball for play; a ball of thread; a ball of snow.

2. A bullet; a ball of iron or lead for cannon, muskets, etc.

3. A printer's ball consisting of hair or wool, covered with leather or skin, and fastened to a stock, called a ball-stock, and used to put ink on the types in the forms.

4. The globe or earth, from its figure.

5. A globe borne as an ensign of authority; as, to hold the ball of a kingdom.

6. Any part of the body that is round or protuberant; as, the eye ball; the ball of the thumb or foot.

7. The weight at the bottom of a pendulum.

8. Among the Cornish miners in England, a tin mine.

9. In pyrotechnics, a composition of combustible ingredients, which serve to burn, smoke or give light.

BALL-stock, among printers, a stock somewhat hollow at one end, to which balls of skin, stuffed with wool, are fastened, and which serves as a handle.

BALL-vein, among miners, a sort of iron ore, found in loose masses, of a circular form, containing sparkling particles.

BALL and socket, an instrument used in surveying and astronomy, made of brass, with a perpetual screw, to move horizontally, obliquely, or vertically.

Puff-ball, in botany, the Lycoperdon, a genus of fungeses.

Fire-ball, a meteor; a luminous globe darting through the atmosphere; also, a bag of canvas filled with gunpowder, sulphur, pitch, saltpeter, etc., to be thrown by the hand, or from mortars, to set fire to houses.

BALL, noun [Gr.to toss or throw; to leap.] An entertainment of dancing; originally and peculiarly, at the invitation and expense of an individual; but the word is used in America, for a dance at the expense of the attendants.

BALL, verb intransitive To form into a ball as snow on horses' hoofs, or on the feet. We say the horse balls, or the snow balls.

BAL'LAD, noun A song; originally, a solemn song of praise; but now a meaner kind of popular song.

BAL'LAD, verb intransitive To make or sing ballads.

BAL'LADER, noun A writer of ballads.

BAL'LAD-MAKER, noun A maker or composer of ballads.

BAL'LAD-MONGER, noun [See Monger] A dealer in writing ballads.

BAL'LADRY, noun The subject or style of ballads.

BAL'LAD-SINGER, noun One whose employment is to sing ballads.

BAL'LAD-STYLE, noun The air or manner of a ballad.

BAL'LAD-TUNE, noun The tune of a ballad.

BAL'LAD-WRITER, noun A composer of ballads.

BAL'LARAG, verb transitive To bully; to threaten. [Not in use.]

BAL'LAST, noun

1. Heavy matter, as stone, sand or iron, laid on the bottom of a ship or other vessel, to sink it in the water, to such a depth, as to enable it to carry sufficient sail, without oversetting.

Shingle ballast is ballast of coarse gravel.

2. Figuratively, that which is used to make a thing steady.

BAL'LAST, verb transitive To place heavy substances on the bottom of a ship or vessel, to keep it from oversetting.

2. To keep any thing steady, by counterbalancing its force.

BAL'LASTED, participle passive Furnished with ballast; kept steady by a counterpoising force.

BAL'LASTING, participle present tense Furnishing with ballast; keeping steady.

BAL'LASTING, noun Ballast; that which is used for ballast.

BAL'LATED, adjective Sung in a ballad. [Little used.]

BALLATOON', noun A heavy luggage boat employed on the rivers about the Caspian Lake.

BAL'LATRY, noun A song; a jig.

BALLAUS'TINE, noun The wild pomegranate tree.

BAL'LET, noun

1. A kind of dance; an interlude; a comic dance, consisting of a series of several airs, with different movements, representing some subject or action.

2. A kind of dramatic poem, representing some fabulous action or subject, in which several persons appear and recite things, under the name of some deity or personage.

In heraldry, ballets or balls, a bearing in coats of arms, denominated according to their color, bezants, plates, hurts, etc.

BAL'LIAGE, or more correctly bailage. noun

A small duty paid to the city of London by aliens, and even by denizens, for certain commodities exported by them.

BALLIARDS. [See Billiards.]

BALLISTER. [See Baluster.]

BALLIS'TIC, adjective [Latin balista, an engine to throw stones, or shoot darts, from Gr.to throw or shoot.] Pertaining to the balista, or to the art of shooting darts, and other missive weapons, by means of an engine.

BALLIS'TICS, noun The science or art of throwing missive weapons, by the use of an engine. The balista was a machine resembling a cross-bow.

BAL'LOEN, noun A state barge of Siam, made of a single piece of timber, very long, and managed with oars.

BALLOON', noun

1. In general, any spherical hollow body.

2. In chimistry, a round vessel with a short neck, to receive whatever is distilled; a glass receiver of a spherical form.

3. In architecture, a ball or globe, on the top of a pillar.

4. In fireworks, a ball of pasteboard, or kind of bomb, stuffed with combustibles, to be played off, when fired, either in the air, or in water, which, bursting like a bomb, exhibits sparks of fire like stars.

5. A game, somewhat resembling tennis, played in an open field, with a large ball of leather, inflated with wind.

6. A bag or hollow vessel, made of silk or other light material, and filled with hydrogen gas or heated air, so as to rise and float in the atmosphere, called for distinction, an air-balloon.

7. In France, a quantity of paper, containing 24 reams. [See Bale.]

8. In France, balloon ballon or ballot, a quantity of glass plates; of white glass, 25 bundles of six plates each; of colored glass, 12 1-2 bundles of three plates each.

BALLOON'

BAL'LOT, noun

1. A ball used in voting. Ballots are of different colors; those of one color give an affirmative; those of another, a (p.21) negative. They are privately put into a box or urn.

2. A ticket or written vote, being given in lieu of a ballot is now called by the same name.

3. The act of voting by balls or tickets.

BAL'LOT, verb intransitive To vote by ballot that is, by putting little balls of different colors into a box, the greater number of one color or the other determining the result.

2. To vote by written papers or tickets.

BAL'LOTADE

BALLOTA'TION, noun A voting by ballot. [Little used.]

BAL'LOT-BOX, noun A box for receiving ballots.