balk
Noun · VerbOpen English WordNet
Noun (4)
- the area on a billiard table behind the balkline“a player with ball in hand must play from the balk”Synonyms: baulkType of area, expansePart of pool table, billiard table
- something immaterial that interferes with or delays action or progressSynonyms: hindrancehinderancedeterrentimpedimentbaulkcheckhandicapType of difficulty, difficultnessKinds obstacle, drag, albatross, bind, diriment impediment, straitjacket
- one of several parallel sloping beams that support a roofSynonyms: rafterbaulkType of beam
- an illegal pitching motion while runners are on baseType of pitch, delivery
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: AS. balca beam, ridge; akin to Icel. bālkr partition, bjālki beam, OS. balko, G. balken; cf. Gael. balc ridge of earth between two furrows. Cf. Balcony, Balk, transitive verb, 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.— Thomas 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.— Geoffrey Chaucer
3. Military 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.— Robert South
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.
Origin: 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. obsolete John Gower
2. To leave heaped up; to heap up in piles. obsolete
Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights, Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see.— William Shakespeare
3. To omit, miss, or overlook by chance. obsolete
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.— John Evelyn
Sick he is, and keeps his bed, and balks his meat.— Bp. Joseph Hall
Nor doth he any creature balk, But lays on all he meeteth.— Michael Drayton
5. To disappoint; to frustrate; to foil; to baffle; to thwart; as, to balk expectation.
They shall not balk my entrance.— George Noel Gordon, Ld. Byron
1. To engage in contradiction; to be in opposition. obsolete
In strifeful terms with him to balk.— Edmund Spenser
2. To stop abruptly and stand still obstinately; to jib; to stop short; to swerve; as, the horse balks.
☞ This has been regarded as an Americanism, but it occurs in Spenser's “Faërie 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.
Origin: 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.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: GCIDE editors