BALKING • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Balking

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/bˈɔkɪŋ/ Listen

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.

See images of 'Balking'

Etymology of 'Balking'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Balking" Quotes from Famous Books

... the more hardly. The only reason in this case was, that the captain had determined to have the custom-house officers on board on Monday, and wished to have his brig in order. Jack is a slave aboard ship; but still he has many opportunities of thwarting and balking his master. When there is danger or necessity, or when he is well used, no one can work faster than he; but the instant he feels that he is kept at work for nothing, or, as the nautical phrase is, "humbugged,'' ...

— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... about his sister? Grace wondered. Certainly he had directly or indirectly been the means of balking every one of Miriam's schemes for injuring Anne. Perhaps Miriam had told him she was to win the prize, and he was thinking of Anne's disappointment. All three boys paused when they saw their friends of the Christmas house party. Hippy leaned over ...

— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... months had dragged or flown along, retarded or spurred on as privation or adventure predominated, thoughts of his own home, while oft recurring, had become less vivid. The old life had grown to seem more like a dream than a reality, and the balking of his determination to reach the coast and return to London had finally thrown the hope of realization so remotely into the future that it too now seemed little more than a ...

— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... coons aren't fixing to build a fire under him!" exclaimed Decker. "They'd rather fool with a balking mule than eat watermelon! Let's go ...

— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... once green shade as far down as he dared without giving cause for suspicion, and before the window had placed a high-backed chair and thrown upon it a greenish, blackish, brownish veteran of a fall overcoat—thus balking any glances that might rove lazily ...

— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com