Of or pertaining to the ballista, or to the art of hurling stones or missile weapons by means of an engine.
Pertaining to ballistics{2}, or to a projectile in a gravitational field.
(1) To travel by a path guided only by gravitation and velocity rather than propulsion. A ballistic missile is one that has an initial rocket guidance that, when the engine shuts down, simply “falls” the rest of the way to the target on a ballistic trajectory. (2) Condition of the ship's engineer when he sees how dirty the engineroom has become.