Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BAL'ANCE-REEF, n.

A reef band that crosses a sail diagonally, used to contract it in a storm. – Mar. Dict.

BAL'ANC-ING, n.

Equilibrium; poise. – Spenser.

BAL'ANC-ING, ppr.

Charging with equal weights; being in a state of equipoise; bringing to a state of equality; regulating respective forces or sums to make them equal; settling; adjusting; paying a difference of accounts; hesitating; contracting a sail by rolling up one corner of it.

BAL'A-NITE, n.

A fossil shell of the genus Balanus. – Jameson.

BAL'ASS, or BAL'AS, n. [Sp. balax; Fr. balais.]

A variety of spinel ruby, of a pale rose red, or inclining to orange. Its crystals are usually octahedrons, composed of two four-sided pyramids, applied base to base. [See Spinel.] – Cleaveland. Kirwan.

BA-LAUS'TINE, n.

The wild pomegranate tree. – Coxe.

BAL'CO-NY, n. [Fr. balcon; It. balcone; Sp. balcon; Port. balcam; probably a jutting, as in bulk, belly; W. balc. In Pers. نَالكَنه balkanah, is a cancellated window.]

In architecture, a projection in front of a house; a frame of wood, iron or stone, or other building, supported by columns, pillars or consoles, and encompassed with a balustrade. Balconies are common before windows. – Encyc.

BALD, a. [bauld; Sp. baldio, untilled, vacant, unfurnished; Port. baldio, open, common; baldar, to frustrate.]

1. Destitute of hair, especially on the top and back of the head.
2. Destitute of the natural covering; as, a bald oak.
3. Without feathers on the head; as, a bald vulture.
4. Destitute of trees on the top; as, a bald mountain.
5. Unadorned; inelegant; as, a bald translation. – Dryden.
6. Mean; naked; base; without dignity or value. – Shak.
7. In popular language, open, bold, audacious.
8. Without beard or awn; as, bald wheat.

BALD'A-CHIN, n. [It. baldacchino; Sp. baldaquino, a rich silk or canopy, carried over the host. Du Cange. Lunier deduces it from the name of a city in Babylonia.]

In architecture, a building in form of a canopy, supported by columns, and often used as a covering to insulated altars; sometimes used for a shell over a door. – Encyc. Johnson.

BALD'ER-DASH, n. [Qu. Sp. balda, a trifle, or baldonar, to insult with abusive language; W. baldorz, to prattle; D. bulderen.]

Mean, senseless prate; a jargon of words; ribaldry; any thing jumbled together without judgment.

BALD'ER-DASH, v.t.

To mix or adulterate liquors. – Johnson.

BALD'HEAD, n.

A man bald on the head. – 2 Kings ii. 23.

BALD'LY, adv.

Nakedly; meanly; inelegantly; openly.

BALD'NESS, n.

Want of hair on the top and back of the head; loss of hair; meanness or inelegance of writing; want of ornament.

BALD'PATE, n.

A pate without hair. – Shak.

BALD'PA-TED, a.

Destitute of hair; shorn of hair. – Shak.

BALD'RICK, n. [from Sw. balt, Ir. balta, L. balteus, a belt, and rick, rich. See these words.]

1. A girdle, or richly ornamented belt; a war girdle. A radiant baldrick o'er his shoulders tied. – Pope.
2. The zodiac. – Spenser.

BALE, n. [Fr. balle; Ger. ballen; D. baal; It. balla, a bale; Ch. Ar. Heb. הבל, to hind, to pledge, and its derivative, in Ar. and Eth., a rope.]

1. A bundle or package of goods in a cloth cover, and corded for carriage or transportation.
2. Formerly, a pair of dice.

BALE, n. [Sax. beal, bealo. Qu. Heb. Ch. Syr. and Ar. אבל, to grieve or mourn, to be desolate, or חבל, to destroy. In Ir. beala is to die, and abail, death.]

Misery; calamity. [Obs.]

BALE, v.t.

To make up in a bale.

BA-LE-AR'IC, a. [from Balearis, the denomination given to Majorca and Minorca. Qu. from Gr. βαλλω, to throw, because the inhabitants were good slingers.]

Pertaining to the isles of Majorca and Minorca, in the Mediterranean Sea.

BALE'-FIRE, n.

A signal fire; an alarm fire. Sweet Teviot! on thy silver tide / The gloomy bale-fires blaze no more. – Scott.

BALE'FUL, a. [See Bale.]

1. Mischievous; destructive; pernicious; calamitous; deadly; as, baleful enemies; baleful war.
2. Sorrowful; woeful; sad. – Spenser. Milton.

BALE'FUL-LY, adv.

Sorrowfully; perniciously; in a calamitous manner.

BALE'FUL-NESS, n.

Destructiveness.