imbalance
Americannoun
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imbalances
plural
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the state or condition of lacking balance, as in proportion or distribution.
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faulty muscular or glandular coordination.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of imbalance
Explanation
An imbalance occurs when you have too much of some things and too little of others. If you put so much pepper in your soup that you can't taste the other spices, then you caused an imbalance in your flavoring. It’s easy to remember the meaning of imbalance when you break the word into parts. You might recognize the prefix im- as a way to say “not.” Combine that with the familiar word balance, and you come up with something that is decidedly out of whack, or not balanced. It means that something is out of proportion, such as a trade imbalance between nations, meaning the amount of goods they sell to one another is not equal.
Vocabulary lists containing imbalance
Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: in-, im-, il-, ir-
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Because it interacts so weakly with other particles, scientists assumed it would have little influence on the processes responsible for creating the imbalance.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 1, 2026
The latest figures come amid mounting trade friction with the European Union, which has pressed Beijing to address a widening trade imbalance and flagged concerns over competition from Chinese manufacturers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
The result is, I feel like I just end up paying for other people’s birthday dinners a lot, as well as my own, which is an imbalance.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026
Fedorov had created an "imbalance" in supplies, Syrskyi said.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
The imbalance made his head tilt to the left, so that he looked like he was trying to get water out of his ear.
From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan
The politician told MPs on Thursday that he was not "sufficiently alert" to the power imbalances between him and his employee.
From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2026
IMF boss Kristalina Georgieva said in Bangkok on Wednesday that China's growth model must "shift from export more towards domestic consumption" in order to address global imbalances.
From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026
That in itself created imbalances — refiners shifted to diesel “perhaps a little bit too early,” he said.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026
Their varied diets should also buffer them from imbalances in prey populations.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 11, 2026
It is my own feeling that the most successful line of research will be that taken by the men studying enzyme imbalances.
From "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
