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Balk   /bɔk/  /bɑlk/   Listen
noun
Balk  n.  
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."
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."
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."
5.
A sudden and obstinate stop; a failure.
6.
(Baseball) A deceptive gesture of the pitcher, as if to deliver the ball. It is illegal and is penalized by allowing the runners on base to advance one base.
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.


verb
Balk  v. t.  (past & past part. balked; pres. part. balking)  
1.
To leave or make balks in. (Obs.)
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."
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 inns." "Sick he is, and keeps his bed, and balks his meat." "Nor doth he any creature balk, But lays on all he meeteth."
5.
To disappoint; to frustrate; to foil; to baffle; to thwart; as, to balk expectation. "They shall not balk my entrance."


Balk  v. i.  
1.
To engage in contradiction; to be in opposition. (Obs.) "In strifeful terms with him to balk."
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 "Faerie Queene," Book IV., 10, xxv. "Ne ever ought but of their true loves talkt, Ne ever for rebuke or blame of any balkt."
3.
(Baseball) To commit a balk (6); of a pitcher.


Balk  v. i.  To indicate to fishermen, by shouts or signals from shore, the direction taken by the shoals of herring.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Balk" Quotes from Famous Books



... likely your Dad would balk at your using the car if he knew the circumstances," piped another boy. "We have got that match to play off, and now that the electric cars are held up by the strike how are we to get to Torrington? Don't be ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... mummery and incantations of which she had been a distant spectator. Le Bourdon's heart was light, after his hazards and escape, and his spirits rose as his narrative proceeded. Nor was pretty Margery in a mood to balk his humor. As the bee-hunter recounted his contrivances to elude the savages, and most especially when he gave the particulars of the manner in which he managed to draw whiskey out of the living rock, the girl joined in his merriment, and filled the boat with that melody of the ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... pond holes where the wild fowl found their feeding beds. Here was this refuge, where they fled to escape persecution, the spot most remote, secluded, secret, inaccessible. Here nature conspired to balk pursuit. The wide shallows made a bar now to the average sailing craft, and as for a motor-yacht like ours, the presence of a local pilot, acquainted with all the oyster reefs and shallows, all the channels and cut-offs, made us feel more easy, for we knew we could no longer sail merely by compass ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... perpetuity of the race. We cannot refine the elements,—the air, the water, the soil, the sunshine,—and the more we pervert or shut out these from our lives the worse for us. In the same manner, the more we pervert or balk the great natural impulses, sexuality, comradeship, the religious emotion, nativity, or the more we deny and belittle our bodies, the further we are from the spirit of Walt Whitman, and from the spirit ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... advanced, and still there was the same, and the same, and the same—the same circle of flaming sky—the same circle of sand still glaring with light and fire. Over all the heaven above, over all the earth beneath, there was no visible power that could balk the fierce will of the sun: “he rejoiced as a strong man to run a race; his going forth was from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there was nothing hid from the heat thereof.” From pole to pole, and from the east to the west, he ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake


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