balk definition | Dictionary.com

balk

[bawk]

–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.
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Link To balk

balk (bôk)

v. balked, balk·ing, balks

v. intr.

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

To check or thwart by or as if by an obstacle.
Archaic To let go by; miss.

A hindrance, check, or defeat.
Sports An incomplete or misleading motion, especially an illegal move made by a baseball pitcher.
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.
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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Balk

Balk\, n. [AS. balca beam, ridge; akin to Icel. b[=a]lkr partition, bj[=a]lki beam, OS. balko, G. balken; cf. Gael. balc ridge of earth between two furrows. Cf. Balcony, Balk, v. i., 3d Bulk.]

1. A ridge of land left unplowed between furrows, or at the end of a field; a piece missed by the plow slipping aside.

Bad plowmen made balks of such ground. --Fuller.

2. A great beam, rafter, or timber; esp., the tie-beam of a house. The loft above was called "the balks."

Tubs hanging in the balks. --Chaucer.

3. (Mil.) One of the beams connecting the successive supports of a trestle bridge or bateau bridge.

4. A hindrance or disappointment; a check.

A balk to the confidence of the bold undertaker. --South.

5. A sudden and obstinate stop; a failure.

6. (Baseball) A deceptive gesture of the pitcher, as if to deliver the ball.

Balk line (Billiards), a line across a billiard table near one end, marking a limit within which the cue balls are placed in beginning a game; also, a line around the table, parallel to the sides, used in playing a particular game, called the balk line game.

Balk

Balk\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Balked (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Balking.] [From Balk a beam; orig. to put a balk or beam in one's way, in order to stop or hinder. Cf., for sense 2, AS. on balcan legan to lay in heaps.]

1. To leave or make balks in. [Obs.] --Gower.

2. To leave heaped up; to heap up in piles. [Obs.]

Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights, Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see. --Shak.

3. To omit, miss, or overlook by chance. [Obs.]

4. To miss intentionally; to avoid; to shun; to refuse; to let go by; to shirk. [Obs. or Obsolescent]

By reason of the contagion then in London, we balked the ?nns. --Evelyn.

Sick he is, and keeps his bed, and balks his meat. --Bp. Hall.

Nor doth he any creature balk, But lays on all he meeteth. --Drayton.

5. To disappoint; to frustrate; to foil; to baffle; to ?hwart; as, to balk expectation.

They shall not balk my entrance. --Byron.

Balk

Balk\, v. i. 1. To engage in contradiction; to be in opposition. [Obs.]

In strifeful terms with him to balk. --Spenser.

2. To stop abruptly and stand still obstinately; to jib; to stop short; to swerve; as, the horse balks.

Note: This has been regarded as an Americanism, but it occurs in Spenser's "Fa["e]rie Queene," Book IV., 10, xxv.

Ne ever ought but of their true loves talkt, Ne ever for rebuke or blame of any balkt.

Balk

Balk\, v. i. [Prob. from D. balken to bray, bawl.] To indicate to fishermen, by shouts or signals from shore, the direction taken by the shoals of herring.

Language Translation for : balk

Spanish: viga,

German: der Balken,

Japanese: 梁

More Translations »

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.

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