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baulk

 - 4 dictionary results

baulk

  [bawk]
Use baulk in a Sentence
–verb (used without object), verb (used with object), noun
balk.

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.
Cite This Source Link To baulk
baulk   (bôk)   
v.   & n. Chiefly British
Variant of balk.
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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