Word.ws English Dictionary

beck

/ˈbɛk/

beck noun: a stream or small river. Also the obsolete form of beak.

Noun (1)

beck (plural becks)

  1. (Norfolk, Northern England) A stream or small river.
    • […]Whence, climing to the Cleeves, her selfe she firmlie sets / The Bourns, the Brooks, the Becks, the Rills, the Rivilets[…]1612, Michael Drayton, chapter 1, in [John Selden], editor, Poly-Olbion. Or A Chorographicall Description of Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and Other Parts of this Renowned Isle of Great...
    • […] the sky is blue, and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks are all brim full.1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter XIII, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    brook, burn, creek, stream

Noun (2)

beck (plural becks)

  1. A significant nod, or motion of the head or hand, especially as a call or command.
    • Ah, knovv you not the Citie fauours them,
      And they haue troupes of Souldiers at their beck?c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
    • Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee
      Jest and youthful Jollity,
      Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
      Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,1645, John Milton, L'Allegro

Verb

beck (third-person singular simple present becks, present participle becking, simple past and past participle becked)

  1. (archaic) To nod or motion with the head.
    • When gold and silver becks me to come on.c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • I'll buy so many acres of old Scotland and call them by the Lockerby's name; and I'll have nobles and great men come bowing and becking to David Lockerby as they do to Alexander Gordon.1896, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, Winter Evening Tales

Noun (3)

beck (plural becks)

  1. A vat.

Proper noun capitalized: Beck

Beck (countable and uncountable, plural Becks)

  1. A surname.
    • As Glenn Beck was bashing Sarvis as a GPS-installing LINO on his show,,^([sic]) his muckraking journalists at TheBlaze "revealed" that Sarvis was "bankrolled" by an "Obama bundler."2014 March 8, John Vaught Labeaume, “No Thanks, CPAC. This Libertarian Won't Attend a Conservative Love-Fest.”, in Reason Magazine
  2. An unincorporated community in Covington County, Alabama, United States, likely named after the Beck family.
  3. The River Beck, or The Beck, a minor river in south-east Greater London, England, which becomes the Pool River before joining the Ravensbourne.

Also used as

beck is also the obsolete form of beak.

beck meaning in Bengali, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada

beck in Bengali

বেক্

beck in Telugu

బెక్

beck in Malayalam

ബെക്ക്

beck in Kannada

ಬೆಕ್

Examples of beck in a sentence

  • Beck water cold and clear, will never clean your wound1976, Archie Fisher, “The Witch Of The West-Mer-Lands”, in The Man With A Rhyme, Sharon, CT: Folk Legacy Records:
  • The beck is crossed by a pretty ford and a number of bridges, and in spring the cottages look out over a dancing sea of daffodils.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 102:
  • The dog obeyed the significant beck of his finger, and they drew off, stealthily, together.1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Oliver Twist; […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […]...

All 11 example sentences with beck

Synonyms of beck

Forms of beck

Noun
pluralbecks
Verb
third-person singular presentbecks
present participlebecking
past participlebecked
pastbecked
Proper noun
pluralBecks

Plural of beck: becks

Origin of beck

From Middle English bek, bekk, becc, from Old English bæc, bec, bæċe, beċe (“beck, brook”), from Proto-Germanic *bakiz (“stream”). Cognate with Old Norse bekkr (“a stream or brook”), Low German bek, beck, German Bach, Dutch beek, Swedish bäck, Doublet of batch. More at beach.

From Middle English bekken, a shortened form of Middle English bekenen, from Old English bēcnan, bēacnian (“to signify; beckon”), from Proto-West Germanic *baukn, from Proto-Germanic *baukną (“beacon”). More at beacon.

See back.

Words formed from beck

Words that rhyme with beck

44 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about beck

What does beck mean?
Beck means a stream or small river.
What is beck in Bengali?
Beck in Bengali is বেক্. See Beck meaning in Bengali.
How do you use beck in a sentence?
Beck water cold and clear, will never clean your wound
What part of speech is beck?
Beck can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce beck?
Beck is pronounced /ˈbɛk/.
What is the plural of beck?
The plural of beck is becks.

Words near beck in the dictionary

  1. Bechwanas
  2. becindered
  3. beciparcil
  4. becircled
  5. Beciu
  6. beck
  7. beck and call
  8. Beck Foot
  9. Beck Hole
  10. Beck Hopelessness Scale
  11. Beck Houses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beck (page history and authors); Beck (page history and authors); beck (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beck (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beck (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beck (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-beck.wav.

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