Definition of "lighter-than-air" []

• Having a weight less than that of the air displaced. Used of certain aircraft. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Kay, with his lighter-than-air touch, offers a broader critique that views Krugman and Cochrane, Deepwater and Freshwater, as part of the same logic-chopping species: worshippers at the altar of consistency and undoubtedly of confirmation bias, too."
• "Would it be the ultralight bones (maybe composed of a special magic material) and the helium sacs (maybe filled with a magic lighter-than-air gas instead)?"
• "Oppel's airships use a lighter-than-air gas called hydrium in place of the real-world helium, and they've been employed so effectively that no one has ever felt the need to invent the airplane."