(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.
Foil
Definition:
(v. t.) To tread under foot; to trample.
(v. t.) To render (an effort or attempt) vain or nugatory; to baffle; to outwit; to balk; to frustrate; to defeat.
(v. t.) To blunt; to dull; to spoil; as, to foil the scent in chase.
(v. t.) To defile; to soil.
(n.) Failure of success when on the point of attainment; defeat; frustration; miscarriage.
(n.) A blunt weapon used in fencing, resembling a smallsword in the main, but usually lighter and having a button at the point.
(n.) The track or trail of an animal.
(n.) A leaf or very thin sheet of metal; as, brass foil; tin foil; gold foil.
(n.) A thin leaf of sheet copper silvered and burnished, and afterwards coated with transparent colors mixed with isinglass; -- employed by jewelers to give color or brilliancy to pastes and inferior stones.
(n.) Anything that serves by contrast of color or quality to adorn or set off another thing to advantage.
(n.) A thin coat of tin, with quicksilver, laid on the back of a looking-glass, to cause reflection.
(n.) The space between the cusps in Gothic architecture; a rounded or leaflike ornament, in windows, niches, etc. A group of foils is called trefoil, quatrefoil, quinquefoil, etc., according to the number of arcs of which it is composed.
Example Sentences:
(1) The magnitude of improvement achieved is dependent upon field size, SSD, the atomic number of the foil material, and foil thickness.
(2) Membranes were sandwiched between two gas-permeable, plastic foils, placed in a sealed cuvette, and gassed with H2 as reductant or O2 as oxidant.
(3) Based on the macrophage-specific release using crystalline silica, and the production and secretion of at least three hemopoietic regulatory factors (erythropoietin, colony stimulating factor and a multipotential stem cell enhancing and maintaining factor) into the extracellular fluid of bone marrow-derived macrophages grown on hydrophobic teflon foils, a hypothesis for the regulation of hemopoiesis is proposed.
(4) The entrance window is 12 microns Melinex foil with a thin aluminium surface.
(5) The present study investigated these inconsistencies by manipulating nonword foil lexicality (i.e., the similarity of nonword foils to words), semantic priming, and word frequency in two lexical decision experiments.
(6) International negotiations extend over long periods of time and there are significant steps that we still have to undertake, but the important thing is to continue to make forward progress.” Rich countries accused of foiling effort to give poorer nations a voice on tax Read more Manuel Montes , however, senior adviser on finance and development at the South Centre in Geneva and one of the architects of the financing for development process, felt developing countries had lost more than they had gained.
(7) Mononuclear cells were isolated from whole blood by cytapheresis and cultured for 7 days with 2% autologous serum on hydrophobic Teflon foils.
(8) Maybe it will do him good to go away with England.” Such is the cyclical life of goalscorers, there are times when those fractions that can be the difference between a ball ending up nestled in the net, or agonisingly wide, or foiled by a goalkeeper that probably seems 10 feet tall, loom large.
(9) A stick, 5 to 6 cm long, made of a glass capillary tube, or, aluminium foil, with ends bended as a hock, are weighted up to 0.001 g. Introduce one stick previously weighted in diluted plasma.
(10) The colour to channel for next season is, in fact, not matt buttercup yellow but the gold-foil sheen best explained as the colour of the toffee penny in a box of Quality Street.
(11) I think it was just excited commentary, and it sounds like people are trying to get a lot out the door in terms of Christmas purchases of books.” On Monday morning, Morrison insisted the phone call was of “no consequence” and that linking it with the September spill amounted to “tin foil hat conspiracies”.
(12) A reason for this is the worse demarcability of the pre-beta-lipoprotein proportion in the curves of the densitometre of acetate foils.
(13) A new cell culture technique is described which is based on the observation that foils cast from the melamine resin hexamethylol-melamine-ether are suitable for the cultivation of beating heart muscle cells and fibroblasts of the rat.
(14) The parent nuclide, W-178 (half-life 21.7 d), was produced in the Michigan State University cyclotron by proton bombardment of stacked natural tantalum-foil targets.
(15) A plastic IUD bearing copper foil (42 mm2) was inserted into one horn of the rabbit uterus and a physically similar platinum-bearing IUD in the contralateral horn served as a control.
(16) This study compared the performance of a new computerized occlusal analysis (T-Scan) system with that of Accufilm and Shimstock foil for the registration of tooth contacts on a laboratory model.
(17) Four lead layers (three additional foils equalling 3.92 x 10(-3) mm of lead) on the conventional film package resulted in a significant dose reduction.
(18) From then on, different features were added over the years, including more use of colour, watermark portraits of the queen, highly detailed machine engravings, reflective foil patches and holographic strips.
(19) A lovely counterattack following some ponderous behaviour by NZ outside the Slovakia box, before Vittek was foiled as he was about to pull the trigger.
(20) The nuclear regulation authority said the radiation comprised mostly beta rays that could be blocked by aluminium foil, unlike more penetrative gamma rays.