Word.ws English Dictionary

balky

balky adjective: refusing to proceed or cooperate.

Adjective

balky (comparative balkier, superlative balkiest)

  1. Refusing to proceed or cooperate.
    • a balky horse

Forms of balky

comparativebalkier
superlativebalkiest

Origin of balky

From balk + -y.

Words formed from balky

Questions about balky

What does balky mean?
Balky means refusing to proceed or cooperate.
What part of speech is balky?
Balky is an adjective.

Words near balky in the dictionary

  1. Balko
  2. Balkos
  3. balks
  4. Balkwill
  5. Balkwills
  6. balky
  7. ball
  8. ball ache
  9. ball aches
  10. ball alley
  11. ball alleys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: balky (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-balky.wav.

Cite this entry: “balky.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/balky. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.