balancer (balanser)

1. One who balances or weighs; a weigher of things in or as in a balance. The nicest of our modern critical balancers . Dawson, Orig. of World, p. 59. 2. An acrobat; one who balances himself. 3. One who or that which keeps a thing or things in equilibrium; that which maintains or helps to maintain something in a state of balance or equipoise. -4. Specifically, in entom., a halter (which see); a poiser; the small organ supposed to be useful in balancing the body; one of a pair of slender proce es with clubbed ends placed near the insertion of the wings, especially of dipterous insects.-5. In herpet., an elongate cylindrical rod protruding from each side of the head of larval salamanders, in front of the gills: permanently retained in certain forms, as the cæcilias and some salamanders. E. D. Cope.