Ballonet

//ˈbalənɛt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any of several small balloons, inside a dirigible, that can be inflated or deflated to control buoyancy during flight.

    "An observation balloon, sausage-shaped and thickened at one end by small subsidiary ballonets, lifted itself, almost as though it were being hoisted by a series of pulls, out of one of the hollows beneath them […]."

Example

More examples

"An observation balloon, sausage-shaped and thickened at one end by small subsidiary ballonets, lifted itself, almost as though it were being hoisted by a series of pulls, out of one of the hollows beneath them […]."

Etymology

Borrowed from French ballonnet.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.