Balk | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Bālk, n.

noun

(bawk), n. [A-S. balc, W. balc, a balk of land, a ridge between furrows, from W. balch, prominent, bal, prominence; A-S. balc, Ger. balken, beam. See BALCONY and BALK, v. t.]

Sense 1. A ridge of land left unplowed between furrows, or at the end of a field.

Bad plowmen made balks of such ground. Fuller.

Sense 2. A great beam, or rafter, or timber. “Tubs hanging in the balks.” Chaucer.

Sense 3. (Mil.) One of the beams connecting the successive supports of a trestle-bridge or bateau-bridge. [See Illust. of Bateau-bridge.]

Sense 4. A hinderance or disappointment. “A balk to the confidence of the bold undertaker.” South.

Bālk, v. t.

verbtransitive

(bawk), v. t. [imp. & p. p. BALKED (bawkt); p. pr. & vb. n. BALKING.] [From balk, beam; orig. to put a balk or beam into one's way, in order to stop or hinder. Cf., for No. 4, A-S. on balcan legen, to lay in heaps.]

Sense 1. To leave untouched in plowing. Gower.

Sense 2. To omit, miss, or overlook. [Obs.]

Nor doth he any creature balk, But lays on all he meets. Drayton.

Sense 3. To disappoint; to frustrate; to baffle; as, to balk expectation.

Is there a variance? Enter but his door, Balked are the courts, and contests are no more. Pope.

Sense 4. To leave heaped up, as if untouched by the plow. “Balked in their own blood.” Shak.

Sense 5. To avoid; to shun. [Obs.]

By reason of the contagion then in London, we balked the inns. Evelyn.

Balk, v. i.

verbintransitive

(bawk), v. i. 1. To deal in cross-purposes. [Obs.] “In strifeful terms with him to balk.” Spenser. 2. To stop abruptly in one's course; as, the horse balks; he balked in his speech. ☞ This has been regarded as an Americanism, but it occurs in Spenser's Faery Queen, Book V. c. 10.