imbalance
Americannoun
-
the state or condition of lacking balance, as in proportion or distribution.
-
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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im-
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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.
That imbalance will be corrected and the two measures will converge.
From MarketWatch • Jul. 9, 2026
Over time, those conditions erase the natural imbalance between the mirror image forms of the molecules, leaving them in equal proportions.
From Science Daily • Jul. 9, 2026
In a stroke, the imbalance of reliability issues between the Mercedes drivers has been wiped out, as Russell acknowledged.
From BBC • Jul. 5, 2026
The memory industry has always been cyclical, and today’s prices reflect an unprecedented global supply-demand imbalance.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 30, 2026
That way it gets a good average of the Hab, and one localized imbalance won't throw it off.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
Definitions 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.
