balketh

Verb

balk (third-person singular simple present balks, present participle balking, simple past and past participle balked)

1. To be unwilling to do something; to refuse to proceed or do or allow something, either in general or only temporarily.
   • balked at paying a day's wages for a pencil; he said he would buy her one, but when he saw the price, he balked
2. (especially, mule, etc) To stop short and refuse to go on or do something (such as jump).
   • The horse balked.

   Synonyms:

   jib

3. To move fitfully, stopping frequently.
   • The horses balked up the canyon, / But we made it with half a load. / Got to the top with panniers. / Went back for the bedding stowed.1915, L. J. Dickinson, John O' Dreams, page 80
4. To leave or make a balk or balks (ridges) in; to leave a ridge in by leaving partly unploughed.
   • But so well halt no man the plough, / That he ne balketh other while[c. 1386–1390, John Gower, edited by Reinhold Pauli, Confessio Amantis of John Gower: Edited and Collated with the Best Manuscripts, volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III) (in Middle English)...
5. To stop, check, block (by or as if by an obstacle); to hinder, impede, thwart.
   • My Sport is always balkt, or cut short — I stumble over the Game me I would pursue —1733, William Congreve, The Old Batchelor: A Comedy, page 55
6. (obsolete, possibly) To leave heaped up; to heap up in piles.
   • Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights, / Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

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