Balancing

How to spell balancing

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce balancing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does balancing mean?

1. verbKeeping something steady or in equilibrium, or weighing competing things against each other.

Balancing in a sentence

• The accountant spent the afternoon balancing the company books.

• She walked across the beam, carefully balancing her weight on each step.

Where does balancing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin bilanx, which literally meant 'having two pans', built from bi 'two' and lanx 'a plate or scale-pan', describing the twin dishes of a weighing balance. This passed into Late Latin as bilancia, then into Old French as balance, the name for the weighing instrument itself. English borrowed the noun in the 1200s and soon turned it into a verb meaning to weigh or hold in equilibrium, from which the present participle 'balancing' is formed. The single 'l' and the soft 'c' are the spelling traps: writers sometimes double the 'l' or reach for an 's', but the 'c' is original to the Latin lanx. The same root still sits inside 'balanced' and the financial 'balance sheet', where the two-pan idea of equal sides survives.

How the word is built

• balance (from Latin bilanx: two-panned scale)
• -ing (present participle/verbal noun suffix)