Definitions for balks

• Definition
• Anagrams (59)

balks balk

Spelling: [bawk]

IPA: /bɔk/

Balks is a 5 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 11 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 13 points.

You can make 59 anagrams from letters in balks (abkls).

Definitions for balks

noun

1. a check or hindrance; defeat; disappointment.
2. a strip of land left unplowed.
3. a crossbeam in the roof of a house that unites and supports the rafters; tie beam.
4. any heavy timber used for building purposes.
5. Baseball. an illegal motion by a pitcher while one or more runners are on base, as a pitch in which there is either an insufficient or too long a pause after the windup or stretch, a pretended throw to first or third base or to the batter with one foot on the pitcher's rubber, etc., resulting in a penalty advancing the runner or runners one base.
6. Billiards. any of the eight panels or compartments lying between the cushions of the table and the balklines.
7. Obsolete. a miss, slip, or failure:

Idioms

1. in balk, inside any of the spaces in back of the balklines on a billiard table.

verb (used with object)

1. to place an obstacle in the way of; hinder; thwart:
2. Archaic. to let slip; fail to use:

verb (used without object)

1. to stop, as at an obstacle, and refuse to proceed or to do something specified (usually followed by at):
2. (of a horse, mule, etc.) to stop short and stubbornly refuse to go on.
3. Baseball. to commit a balk.

Origin of balks

before 900; Middle English; Old English balca covering, beam, ridge; cognate with Old Norse bǫlkr bar, partition, Dutch balk, Old Saxon balko, German Balken, Old Norse bjalki beam, Old Englis

Examples for balks

Now, your English tourists have always a residue of scruple about them which balks their genius.

Three balks of timber are lying in our road,—one, a very large and heavy monster, directly across it.

We lived in a place beyond, that was separated off from the cows by balks of rough timber.

Ill try it on Billy Bumps when he balks, said Tess, in a small voice.

balks make winter firing when coal is dear and money scarce.

Then we drive two square tunnels, about seven feet wide, through and across the pillar, propping it with balks.

Three balks shall be called "no vault," and must be recorded as one of the three trials.

The charity that balks at giving, reacts upon a man and deadens him.

On each side is a gate built of balks of timber, and so heavy that it must run on wheels.

It is under this custom that the strips and balks are gradually disappearing.