Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person who performs feats of balance, such as tightrope walking.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who balances equally; one who practises balancing in unnatural positions and hazardous movements, as a rope-dancer or funambulist.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who balances himself in unnatural positions and hazardous movements; a balancer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic a tightrope walker

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French équilibriste, from équilibre, equilibrium, from Latin aequilībrium; see equilibrium.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

[Mid. 18th century], French équilibriste, from équilibre ("balance").

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Examples

  • The steward brought me my coffee, and, wedged by boxes and pillows, like an equilibrist, I sat up and drank it.

    CHAPTER XXX 2010

  • When the equilibrist Madame Phom returned to Fan Nan Nan, she did not find Dickie Goldwire at home.

    Villa Incognito Robbins, Tom 2003

  • Nor do I see my way clear in providing for the steeple-climber, the equilibrist, the railroad president, or the tea-taster.

    Reveries of a Schoolmaster Francis B. Pearson

  • Naturally a good equilibrist, the girl took easily to the motor-cycle, and even when Joe went at top speed on some smooth road she liked it.

    Joe Strong, the Boy Fish or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank Vance Barnum

  • For the unusual cold and the night work together had betrayed him into potations even beyond his wont, the slippery pavements had proven very baffling to his dignified tread -- and the snowy signet upon the back of his topcoat spoke to a delighted office all too plainly that at last the alcoholic equilibrist par excellence had fallen.

    White Ashes Alden Charles Noble

  • Another, an equilibrist, showed her how, when he was obliged to stay in bed with a broken leg and had nobody to wait on him, he used to wait on himself by going round the room on his hands ... like that.

    The Bill-Toppers J. Andr�� Castaigne

  • Above, on one side, is an equilibrist swinging on a slack rope; and on the other, a man flying from the tower to the ground, by means of a groove fastened to his breast, slipping over a line strained from one place to the other.

    The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency John Trusler

  • The steward brought me my coffee, and, wedged by boxes and pillows, like an equilibrist, I sat up and drank it.

    Chapter 30 1914

  • At that time I was a contortionist and they called me the Snake-Man; then I became an equilibrist and adopted the name of

    The Quest P��o Baroja 1914

  • Bob with listless enthusiasm, teetering the while upon his cane like a Japanese equilibrist.

    The Auction Block Rex Ellingwood Beach 1913

Comments

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  • The voice, your dull pol will insist,

    Is his and not his ventriloquist.

    He'll grasp at renown

    As contortionist clown,

    Or fame as an agile equilibrist.

    March 25, 2017