(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.
Hinderance
Definition:
(n.) Same as Hindrance.
Example Sentences:
(1) The blocking action may have masked and hindered detection of the stimulatory action of barium in other systems.
(2) Diffusional anisotropy of water protons, induced by nonrandom, directional barriers which hinder or retard water motion, is measurable by MRI.
(3) The power of the landed elite is often cited as a major structural flaw in Pakistani politics – an imbalance that hinders education, social equality and good governance (there is no agricultural tax in Pakistan).
(4) Mapping of susceptibility is hindered by the limitations of conventional tissue typing techniques, and by strong linkage disequilibrium within this part of the genome.
(5) From these results, we presume that light induces a protein that hinders the interaction of gp70 in HM1 cells with its receptor on the NC4 cell surface and thereby inhibits the sexual process between these strains.
(6) This in vivo incorporation of tungsten was competitively hindered by molybdenum.
(7) If a prisoner is in the process of taking a programme this can hinder or even curtail their progress – many prisons don't offer certain programmes so if you are moved to a prison without a particular course you are back to square one when it comes to the crucial Parole Board assessment.
(8) From the outset the former Leicester University economics professor has made no secret of the fact this his “dysfunctional relationship” with Anastasiades and other central Bank board members had hindered his role in the post.
(9) The inhibition of Na+K+ ATPase and Mg2+ ATPase activity which may affect the release and uptake of biogenic amines in CNS, hinders the maturation of human fetal brain.
(10) The identification of patients usually refractory to outpatient treatment was hindered by the constant flux in the population base as illustrated by an 85% increase in the asthma registry over the succeeding 12-mo period.
(11) OKT4 and OKT8 monoclonal antibodies slightly hindered depolarization by CsA while OKT3, OKT11 and OKIa1 antibodies had no such effect.
(12) The Communist party and the liberal Yabloko party complained on Sunday of extensive election violations aimed at boosting United Russia's vote count, including party observers being hindered in their work.
(13) These data indicate that the basic model presented here provides a suitable vehicle for future studies into the biochemical events that may cause skeletal muscle enlargement during resistance training but, based on limited data, suggests that an increased frequency of training days may hinder muscle enlargement in this model.
(14) If this geometry was changed, a decrease in affinity was observed and if the ligand binding was sterically hindered, a spectral shift to a five-coordinated complex absorbing at 390 nm occurred.
(15) Administrative inefficiency hinders even more the appropriate utilization of resources.
(16) Thus, the product of natural processing of equine myoglobin probably has hindering structures in the regions flanking the core epitope 102-118 that interfere with presentation by I-Ak but not I-AS.
(17) Many tropical diseases cause disability and hinder the socio-economic development of the Third World countries where they rage.
(18) The difficulties encountered in casting titanium and its alloys have until recently hindered any widespread use of titanium in restorative dentistry.
(19) Warming water will make it hard for many of the reef’s corals to survive, while the acidification of the oceans will hinder the ability of remaining corals to form their skeletons.
(20) The 3-nitrocatechol-structure of nitecapone seems to hinder nitro-reduction, catechol-O-methylation, and sulfation reactions.