(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.
Hindrance
Definition:
(v. t.) The act of hindering, or the state of being hindered.
(v. t.) That which hinders; an impediment.
Example Sentences:
(1) The increased hindrance to diffusion of the probing molecules caused by the added solutes is considered as good evidence that the probing molecules diffuse by way of pores filled with water.6.
(2) We develop an analogy between the steric hindrance among receptors detecting randomly placed haptens and the temporary locking of a Geiger counter that has detected a radioactive decay.
(3) The relative reactivities of three o-substituted phenols can be explained in terms of steric hindrance which is minimal for a single o-substituent.
(4) The lower affinity of C8-substituted 7-methyl-1,3-dipropylxanthines can be explained quantitatively with steric hindrance, which C8-substituents experience from the 7-methyl group in these conformations.
(5) A comparison of the antioxidant activities of eight 1,4-naphthoquinones indicated that methyl substitution of C-2, lack of steric hindrance at C-3 or C-5, and (in the case of weak acids) a relatively high pKa are favorable structural features associated with strong antioxidant activity.
(6) However, no steric hindrance can be seen between subunits when the subunits in carbonmonoxy Hb are substituted with the corresponding subunits in deoxy Hb.
(7) This suggests that the one-carbon binding site can accomodate two one-carbon groups simultaneously without serious steric hindrance.
(8) Inter-molecular spread of the conformational change among the molecules of PVX protein was demonstrated in DAS-ELISA, when capture mAb inhibited binding of detecting mAb in the absence of steric hindrance.
(9) 46% of the fatal accidents were caused by crashing against hindrances.
(10) Partial hindrance was observed for the third antibody mAb delta 22.
(11) Intraocular horseradish peroxidase (HRP) accumulated in severed optic axons but was transported with no obvious hindrance in spared axons alongside the lesion.
(12) The molecular areas at which the phase transition occurs under the various experimental conditions, together with a parallel analysis of the hydration states and related molecular areas of the DPPC molecules in multilayers, strongly suggest that the steric hindrance associated with the hydration water of the polar head of DPPC molecules in the monolayer is responsible for the drastic decrease in diffusion coefficient in the liquid-condensed phase.
(13) The spondylodiscites were no hindrance for dorsal lordosing osteotomies and can be treated successfully by means of this static correction and the immobilisation.
(14) At the experiments with the isolated rat hearts, prepared by Langendorff, the anti-arrhythmic dose-effects of the water-soluble antioxidant fenozan from the class of steric-hindrance phenols were studied at condition of regional ischemia and reperfusion, as well as its action on the coronary flow.
(15) Taken together, these results suggest that tonin bound to alpha 1-macroglobulin keeps the active site intact and that inhibition of the enzyme activity is due to a steric hindrance.
(16) Because these inhibitors bind preferentially at the extracellular surface of the transporter, their effects must result from a conformational change rather than from steric hindrance.
(17) We propose that incA, in addition to sequestration, can also restrain replication by causing steric hindrance to the origin function.
(18) Vascular hindrance in muscle, but not hindlimb, was less during nerve stimulation in anemia than at normal Hct.
(19) Intense steric hindrance by introducing an enormously bulky group or complete elimination of the 17 beta-hydroxy group rather decreased the anti-androgenic activity.
(20) Their expertise led to this mess, and would be a hindrance, not a help, in cleaning it up.