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Balk

 - 3 dictionary results

balk

  [bawk]
Use Balk in a Sentence
–verb (used without object)
1. to stop, as at an obstacle, and refuse to proceed or to do something specified (usually fol. by at): He balked at making the speech.
2. (of a horse, mule, etc.) to stop short and stubbornly refuse to go on.
3. Baseball. to commit a balk.
–verb (used with object)
4. to place an obstacle in the way of; hinder; thwart: a sudden reversal that balked her hopes.
5. Archaic. to let slip; fail to use: to balk an opportunity.
–noun
6. a check or hindrance; defeat; disappointment.
7. a strip of land left unplowed.
8. a crossbeam in the roof of a house that unites and supports the rafters; tie beam.
9. any heavy timber used for building purposes.
10. Baseball. an illegal motion by a pitcher while one or more runners are on base, as a pitch in which there is either an insufficient or too long a pause after the windup or stretch, a pretended throw to first or third base or to the batter with one foot on the pitcher's rubber, etc., resulting in a penalty advancing the runner or runners one base.
11. Billiards. any of the eight panels or compartments lying between the cushions of the table and the balklines.
12. Obsolete. a miss, slip, or failure: to make a balk.
—Idiom
13. in balk, inside any of the spaces in back of the balklines on a billiard table.
Also, baulk.

Origin:
bef. 900; ME; OE balca covering, beam, ridge; c. ON bǫlkr bar, partition, D balk, OS balko, G Balken, ON bjalki beam, OE bolca plank; perh. akin to L sufflāmen, Slovene blazína, Lith balžíenas beam. See balcony

Related forms:
balker, noun
balk⋅ing⋅ly, adverb

Synonyms:
4. check, retard, obstruct, impede, prevent.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To Balk
balk   (bôk)   
v.   balked, balk·ing, balks

v.   intr.

  1. To stop short and refuse to go on: The horse balked at the jump.

  2. To refuse obstinately or abruptly: She balked at the very idea of compromise.

    1. Sports To make an incomplete or misleading motion.

    2. Baseball To make an illegal motion before pitching, allowing one or more base runners to advance one base.

v.   tr.

  1. To check or thwart by or as if by an obstacle.

  2. Archaic To let go by; miss.

n.  

  1. A hindrance, check, or defeat.

  2. Sports An incomplete or misleading motion, especially an illegal move made by a baseball pitcher.

  3. Games One of the spaces between the cushion and the balk line on a billiard table.

    1. An unplowed strip of land.

    2. A ridge between furrows.

  5. A wooden beam or rafter.


[Middle English balken, to plow up in ridges, from balk, ridge, from Old English balca and from Old Norse balkr, beam.]
balk'er n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

balk 
O.E. balca "ridge," from or influenced by O.N. balkr "ridge of land," especially between two plowed furrows, both from P.Gmc. *balkan-, *belkan- (cf. O.S. balko, Dan. bjelke, O.Fris. balka, Ger. Balken "beam, rafter"), from PIE *bhelg- "beam, plank" (cf. L. fulcire "to prop up, support," fulcrum "bedpost," Lith. balziena "cross-bar;" and possibly Gk. phalanx "trunk, log, line of battle"). Modern senses are figurative, either representing the balk as a hindrance or obstruction (e.g., of horses, "to stop short before an obstacle," recorded from 1481), or from the verb sense of "to miss or omit intentionally" (attested by 1484) as a lazy or incompetent plowman would in making balks. Baseball sense is first attested 1845.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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