[f. as prec. + -ER1; cf. AF. balancer, OF. balancier.]
† 1. One who weighs with a balance. Obs. rare.
[1309. Hustings Rolls Lond., No. 38. 102. Ralph le Balancer, Pepperer. Ibid. (1320), No. 49. 1. Le Balauncer.]
1413. Lydg., Pylgr. Sowle, I. xxxiv. (1859), 37. Neyeng toward the balaunce … she sayd to the balauncer; How is it in oure partye?
1611. Cotgr., Balanceur, a ballancer; a weigher of things in a ballance.
2. One who balances himself in difficult positions; a tumbler, acrobat.
c. 1510. Cocke Lorelles B., 10. Balancers, tynne casters, and skryueners.
1785. Reid, Int. Powers, IV. iv. The feats of balancers and rope dancers.
1841. De Quincey, Rhet. (1860), 355. Posture-maker or balancer.
3. One who keeps things in equilibrium, or maintains the balance of power.
1731. A. Hill, Adv. Poets, xxxi. Ballancers of State.
1795. Scots Mag., LVII. 884/2. A republican balancer of Europe, which the new republic would be.
4. Something that helps to preserve the balance; spec. the knobbed filaments (haltēres or poisers), which in two-winged flies replace the posterior wings, a name given (in F.) by Réaumur from their resemblance to the balancier used in coining.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Ballancers … under the wings of the two-winged flies.
1854. Owen, in Circ. Sc., Org. Nat. II. 56/1. In the long-bodied … abdominal fishes, the ventrals … subserve the office of accessory balancers.
1863. Wood, Illustr. Nat. Hist., III. 554. The … halteres or balancers … are the only vestiges of the hinder pair of wings.
