How to Use balsa in a Sentence

balsa

noun
  • The Dolphins and their 4-2 record are that pretty beach house on balsa-wood stilts.
    Greg Cote, miamiherald, 25 Oct. 2017
  • The floor boards are a composite of fiberglass and balsa wood.
    Csaba Csere, Car and Driver, 7 Sep. 2023
  • The Scatter Raps are made of balsa wood and are available in 14 colors.
    Field & Stream, 27 Dec. 2019
  • To remove much of the lignin, pieces of balsa wood were treated with heat and chemicals for 5 hours.
    IEEE Spectrum, 29 Apr. 2023
  • Measure and cut balsa wood and Velcro to width of shelf opening.
    Martha Stewart, star-telegram, 26 Aug. 2017
  • Every child under 16 will receive a free balsa airplane of their own to make and fly.
    'sam' Boyer/special To Cleveland.com, cleveland.com, 4 May 2018
  • During the nascent days of the California surf scene, surfers were building craft out of balsa, cedar, and redwood.
    Aeriel Brown, Bloomberg.com, 22 Dec. 2017
  • Using balsa wood, Holliday replaced the parts of the coffins from which the bodies would need to burst and scored the wood for extra-easy breakage.
    Anne Victoria Clark, Vulture, 15 July 2021
  • It was called the Swastika model, a laminated balsa and redwood board that had a small swastika on the tail.
    Michael Smolens, sandiegouniontribune.com, 26 Aug. 2017
  • Mindy, who takes to a balsa Hobie as easily as Carol once did, has bigger plans.
    Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times, 3 Aug. 2023
  • This superb and innovative balsa-wood plug has been around longer than most anglers who fish it.
    Bob McNally, Field & Stream, 22 May 2020
  • After time in the humidifier, Denton shapes the butterflies on boards made of balsa wood and blots them to dry.
    Bryce Alderton, Daily Pilot, 3 Aug. 2017
  • Most likely your parents helped you fashion blocks of pine or balsa into a light, four-wheeled racer, usually about the width and length of an iPhone.
    Andrew Zaleski, Popular Science, 3 June 2020
  • In addition to paintings, Matos carves figures out of balsa wood and mounts them on canvases.
    Susan Dunne, courant.com, 27 Mar. 2018
  • The pendulum-like mechanism was on ropes, and Buckley says there was a foot of balsa wood that was supposed to prevent any injury.
    Eric Andersson, Peoplemag, 19 Mar. 2024
  • The bride's bouquet included dusty miller and eco-friendly balsa wood flowers.
    Southern Living, 19 Jan. 2011
  • One of the new artificial muscle designs is, in essence, a small, high-tech version of the rubber bands used to propel balsa-wood airplanes.
    Sid Perkins, Scientific American, 11 July 2019
  • For the first 30 years, my prosthesis was balsa wood with a simple mechanical knee.
    Jothy Rosenberg, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2024
  • Secured balsa wood splints behind her knees to restrict her movement.
    Lexi Pandell, WIRED, 31 Aug. 2023
  • Across the room, a balsa prototype of the iconic, spiderlike rigging used on U2’s 360° tour leans off an easel spattered with inky sketches.
    WIRED, 4 Oct. 2023
  • Any of a wide variety of bobbers and floats can be used, from snap-on plastic models to more sophisticated balsa or cork ones.
    Bob McNally, Field & Stream, 20 Mar. 2023
  • For the kitchen island, White assembled balsa wood into a simple table design, then painted it to look like marble veining.
    Hadley Keller, House Beautiful, 31 Dec. 2019
  • In the session devoted to structures, Michelle Kim, 11, and her partner designed and constructed a miniature bridge out of balsa wood and learned a triangle can withstand more weight than other shapes.
    Mike Glenn, Houston Chronicle, 17 June 2019
  • In reality, little balsa-wood sticks are fragile things, and the combination of phosphorous and potassium in the match head is prone to drying out and crumbling.
    Wes Siler, Outside Online, 3 Mar. 2017
  • In 2011 a University of Calgary test found that subjects were quick to assign emotions and intentions to a piece of balsa wood operated with a joystick.
    Alex Mar, WIRED, 17 Oct. 2017
  • Its moderate action is perfect for casting small plastic and balsa crankbaits, including Rapala’s No. 7 Shad Rap, which weighs 5/16 ounces.
    Pete M. Anderson, Field & Stream, 21 June 2023
  • Turbine blades typically have glass-fibre skins, balsa-wood cores and metal or carbon-fibre spars.
    The Economist, 28 May 2020
  • Saturday's event at Turkey Creek Nature Preserve allows everyone to race small crafts made from balsa wood, competing for prizes and bragging rights.
    Mary Colurso, AL.com, 9 July 2017
  • Outside of its optimal use cases, millimeter-wave’s fragility will probably leave it as the balsa wood of bandwidth solutions.
    Rob Pegoraro, Ars Technica, 4 Dec. 2019
  • Lead architects order up model after model after model, each one an intricate sculpture in foam, paper, and balsa.
    Justin Davidson, The Cut, 20 Mar. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'balsa.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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