Past tense of balk
regular verb
The past tense of balk is balked. The past participle is also balked.
Forms of balk
| Base form (V1) | balk /bɔːk/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | balked |
| Past participle (V3) | balked |
| Present participle | balking |
| Third person singular | balks |
Balked in a sentence
- 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
- Carla balked for a moment, but when the badge and identification was produced, she acquiesced immediately.2004, Derek Hart, Tidal Trap, page 114
- They are major poets out of whak, twisted and balked by unwill.1988, Daniel G. Marowski, Contemporary Literary Criticism, page 5. From the entry unwill
- The public read about the fraggers, the drug users and the unit that balked in combat.1973 April 18, L. James Binder, “An Army Come Home”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry fragger
- I have decided to do this and I will not be balked by a gouty old father-in-law.1923, Robert Ervin Howard, Unhand Me, Villain: A Romance. From the entry honeymoon
Meaning of balk
- noun An uncultivated ridge formed in the open field system, caused by the action of ploughing.
- noun The wall of earth at the edge of an excavation.
- noun Beam, crossbeam; squared timber; a tie beam of a house, stretching from wall to wall, especially when laid so as to form a loft, "the balks".
Questions about the past tense of balk
- What is the past tense of balk?
- The past tense of balk is balked.
- What is the past participle of balk?
- The past participle of balk is balked.
- Is balk a regular or irregular verb?
- Balk is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: balk (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “Past tense of balk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/balk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.