subs. (commercial: orig. American, now general).—The remainder; the rest: cf. ‘lave’ (Scots’) and ‘shank’ (as ‘in the shank of the evening’).
1846. Albany Journal, 7 Jan. The yawl returned to the wreck, took ten or eleven persons and landed them, and then went and got the BALANCE from the floating cabin.
1861. Boston Transcript, 27 Dec. We listened to Wendell Phillips, [but] having an engagement elsewhere, we were forced to leave, and so lost the BALANCE of his oration.
1864. WEBSTER, Dictionary, s.v. [The first dictionary to record the usage.]
1875. Blackwood’s Magazine, April, 443. BALANCE, long familiar to American ears, is becoming so to ours. In an account of a ship on fire we read, ‘Those saved remained the BALANCE of the night watching the burning wreck.’
1883. P. FITZGERALD, Recreations of a Literary Man; Or, Does Writing Pay?, 170. Every one is away shooting or riding; a BALANCE of the ladies is left.
