(v. t.) To miss intentionally; to avoid; to shun; to refuse; to let go by; to shirk.
(v. i.) A ridge of land left unplowed between furrows, or at the end of a field; a piece missed by the plow slipping aside.
(v. i.) A great beam, rafter, or timber; esp., the tie-beam of a house. The loft above was called "the balks."
(v. i.) One of the beams connecting the successive supports of a trestle bridge or bateau bridge.
(v. i.) A hindrance or disappointment; a check.
(v. i.) A sudden and obstinate stop; a failure.
(v. i.) A deceptive gesture of the pitcher, as if to deliver the ball.
(v. t.) To leave or make balks in.
(v. t.) To leave heaped up; to heap up in piles.
(v. t.) To disappoint; to frustrate; to foil; to baffle; to /hwart; as, to balk expectation.
(v. i.) To engage in contradiction; to be in opposition.
(v. i.) To stop abruptly and stand still obstinately; to jib; to stop short; to swerve; as, the horse balks.
(v. i.) To indicate to fishermen, by shouts or signals from shore, the direction taken by the shoals of herring.
Example Sentences:
(1) Since the first is balked by the obstacle of deficit reduction, emphasis has turned to the second.
(2) The US and its allies are balking at Iranian demands for all UN sanctions to be lifted at the start of a deal.
(3) The eastern European nations balked at the “emergency brake” on benefits to EU migrants.
(4) Critics balk at the original asking price of $399, but the initial stock sells out in five hours.
(5) In recent years, though, a number of his near comtemporaries – notably Leonard Cohen and Bruce Springsteen – have been revitalised by taking on the kind of touring schedules that many a younger artist might balk at.
(6) To attract support from moderate Republicans who balked at the plan, an additional $8bn was included over five years to fund so-called high-risk pools that would help subsidize people with preexisting conditions.. Health policy experts have argued the fix is insufficient.
(7) One government source said: "Patrick McLoughlin is not balking at these ideas, which are interesting.
(8) Her work, which tackles the problems women face in Egypt and across the world, has always attracted outrage, but she never seems to have balked at this; she has continued to address controversial issues such as prostitution, domestic violence and religious fundamentalism in her writing.
(9) Young parents who have seen their tax credits cut and wages stagnate might balk at George Osborne’s repeated claims that “the economic plan is working”.
(10) Duration of treadmill exercise on a Balke treadmill protocol increased similarly in the two groups, 62% in the older group (from 8.9 to 14.3 minutes) and 40% in the younger group (from 12.2 to 17.1 minutes) (p = NS).
(11) The Wigan Athletic chairman, Dave Whelan , could step in to save jobs at his stricken former company JJB Sports, which is searching for a buyer after shareholders balked at pumping more cash into the troubled chain.
(12) Republicans in the house have already balked at the $50bn in immediate relief for Sandy that went to the house on Tuesday.
(13) It has been known for weeks that the US balked at Germany’s demand for a no-spy agreement, in part because of the precedent it would set for other countries that might also ask not to be spied on, and in part because Germany , which has limited spy capabilities, had nothing to offer in trade.
(14) Distribution of mitoses and dead hepatocytes in the hepatic balk was investigated.
(15) The new service unveiled on Friday will allow viewers who balk at a monthly Sky pay-TV subscription to access on-demand content including the BBC iPlayer, Facebook and Sky News.
(16) I think we balk at commercialising babies for the same reason that there's no provision under law for financial compensation if you lose a loved one.
(17) The misery of the left was, in the 1980s, matched by the triumphalism of the free marketeers, who had transformed Britain beyond many of their wildest ambitions, and began to balk at the restraints put on their dreams by the European project.
(18) Any Moldy Peach diehards balking at the idea of Green duetting with someone other than Dawson are missing out, though: this record sounds as though he and Shapiro have known each other for ever.
(19) Many countries, including major ones, won’t be willing to make their mitigation commitment legally binding at the international level, and once some balk, the premise of a legal form applicable to all unravels,” he said.
(20) Balking as never before at being the EU's cashpoint, Germany has been the main obstacle, although others have also hidden behind Berlin and quietly egged it on.
Ball
Definition:
(n.) Any round or roundish body or mass; a sphere or globe; as, a ball of twine; a ball of snow.
(n.) A spherical body of any substance or size used to play with, as by throwing, knocking, kicking, etc.
(n.) A general name for games in which a ball is thrown, kicked, or knocked. See Baseball, and Football.
(n.) Any solid spherical, cylindrical, or conical projectile of lead or iron, to be discharged from a firearm; as, a cannon ball; a rifle ball; -- often used collectively; as, powder and ball. Spherical balls for the smaller firearms are commonly called bullets.
(n.) A flaming, roundish body shot into the air; a case filled with combustibles intended to burst and give light or set fire, or to produce smoke or stench; as, a fire ball; a stink ball.
(n.) A leather-covered cushion, fastened to a handle called a ballstock; -- formerly used by printers for inking the form, but now superseded by the roller.
(n.) A roundish protuberant portion of some part of the body; as, the ball of the thumb; the ball of the foot.
(n.) A large pill, a form in which medicine is commonly given to horses; a bolus.
(n.) The globe or earth.
(v. i.) To gather balls which cling to the feet, as of damp snow or clay; to gather into balls; as, the horse balls; the snow balls.
(v. t.) To heat in a furnace and form into balls for rolling.
(v. t.) To form or wind into a ball; as, to ball cotton.
(n.) A social assembly for the purpose of dancing.
Example Sentences:
(1) At first it looked as though the winger might have shown too much of the ball to the defence, yet he managed to gain a crucial last touch to nudge it past Phil Jones and into the path of Jerome, who slipped Chris Smalling’s attempt at a covering tackle and held off Michael Carrick’s challenge to place a shot past an exposed De Gea.
(2) In the 55th minute Ivanovic dispossessed Bale and beat Ricketts before sliding the ball across to give Tadic a simple finish.
(3) He sends a low ball into the middle, in the general direction of Fabregas, but the former Arsenal captain can't get ahead of Lahm, who is making a proper nuisance of himself.
(4) It took years of prep work to make this sort of Übermensch thing socially acceptable, let alone hot – lots of “legalize it!” and “you are economic supermen!” appeals to the balled-and-entitled toddler-fists of the sociopathic libertechian madding crowd to really get mechanized mass-death neo-fascism taken mainstream .
(5) Labour's education spokesman, Ed Balls, said it was important to continue expanding the number of graduates.
(6) The tinsel coiled around a jug of squash and bauble in the strip lighting made a golf-ball size knot of guilt burn in my throat.
(7) We have now found that these cells, cultured as a monolayer, are able to undergo rapid morphogenesis forming ridges and balls around collagen fibres, when soluble collagen type I is added to the medium.
(8) Keepy-uppys should be a simple skill for a professional footballer, so when Tom Ince clocked himself in the face with the ball while preparing to take a corner early in the second half, even he couldn't help but laugh.
(9) Everyone worked hard, but it is fair to pick out Willian because of his work-rate, quality on the ball, participation in the first goal and quality of the second.” It had been Willian’s fizzed cross, 11 minutes before the break, which Dragovic had nodded inadvertently inside Shovkovskiy’s near post to earn the hosts their initial lead.
(10) The designs of mechanical prostheses have evolved since the early caged-ball prostheses.
(11) Ed Balls, the shadow home secretary, today called on the head of the Metropolitan police to reopen the investigation into phone hacking by the News of the World.
(12) 7 right-handed male university students stood behind a large Plexiglas screen and spatially matched a ball projected over a distance of 20 feet.
(13) The ball sat up; gravity would bring it down again and, when it did, he would score.
(14) 3.14pm BST 14 mins: It's quite a pleasing thing that, some 22 years after the passback rule was put in place, fans still applaud a player heading the ball back to the keeper.
(15) The number of ovarian balls rises to about 6300 per worm, with the maximum being attained more rapidly in unfertilized than in fertilized females.
(16) The ball's lost, but Tiago gifts it back to Bale, who makes for the Atlético area with great purpose.
(17) And this was always the thing with the British player, they were always deemed never to be intelligent, not to have good decision-making skills but could fight like hell for the ball.
(18) His first ball reaches Ali at hip height and he flicks him to fine leg for a boundary that takes him to a quite epic century.
(19) Photograph: Geektime The same developer’s Red Bouncing Ball Spikes game has also been doing well on the App Store, although as yet Flying Cyrus fever hasn’t spread to Android – the game has been installed less than 5,000 times according to its Google Play store page.
(20) 8.39pm GMT 44 mins: Bunbury is sent clear on Sporting's left but nobody is up in support and he loses the ball.