The extremely light, soft wood of the balsa tree, used in model-building, aircraft construction, and floats.
From Spanish balsa (raft) + wood. The term combined Spanish with English to describe the specific wood prized for its lightweight properties.
Balsa wood is so light that a log the size of a telephone pole weighs less than a person—aerospace engineers still use it today because it has an insanely high strength-to-weight ratio, making it perfect for planes and rockets.
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