BALKING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Balking

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/bˈɔkɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Balk v. t. (past & past part. balked; pres. part. balking)

To leave or make balks in. (Obs.)

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."

To omit, miss, or overlook by chance. (Obs.)

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."

To disappoint; to frustrate; to foil; to baffle; to thwart; as, to balk expectation. "They shall not balk my entrance."

Balk v. i.

To engage in contradiction; to be in opposition. (Obs.) "In strifeful terms with him to balk."

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."

(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.

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Etymology of 'Balking'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Balking" Quotes from Famous Books

... conservatives had at first hooted down the idea of iron ships, asserting they would never float, so they now decried the use of the screw propeller. Indeed there was no denying that this innovation presented to shipbuilders a multitude of new and balking problems. While the clipper ships had greatly improved the designs of vessels the stern was still their weakest point and now, in addition to this already existing difficulty, came the new conundrums presented by the pitch, or full turn of the thread, in the screw ...

— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett