Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use balk in a sentence

28 example sentences · noun, verb

Balk means an uncultivated ridge formed in the open field system, caused by the action of ploughing. Example: “The horse balked.”

Examples of balk by meaning

verbTo 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
  • Carla balked for a moment, but when the badge and identification was produced, she acquiesced immediately.2004, Derek Hart, Tidal Trap, page 114

verbTo stop short and refuse to go on or do something (such as jump).

  • The horse balked.
  • "Her horse balked at the jump and threw her," said Michael.1974, Sharon Salvato, Briarcliff Manor: A Novel, page 107
  • I’ve seen cattle that were handled in two identical facilities easily walk through one and balk in the other.1995, Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, page 6

verbTo stop, check, block (by or as if by an obstacle); to hinder, impede, thwart.

  • Balked for the second time, the passion of his grief had found another outlet, was transformed into a passion of agonized rage.1932, Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, London: Chatto & Windus
  • an incipient accretion of rotundity recently balked his entrance to a boiler wherein his expert scrutiny was imperatively demanded,1915 May, The National Engineer, volume 19, page 299

verbTo let (something) slip; to fail to use or seize or keep (something).

  • to balk an opportunity

verbTo disappoint, frustrate, or check.

  • to balk expectation

verbTo make a balk, a deceptive motion to deceive another player.

  • The best advice you can receive regarding balking is to always maintain poise and composure on the mound.2013, Aaron Wisewell, The Baseball Coach

More sentences with balk

  • Following some confusion the pitcher immediately attempted a quick pitch but was called for a balk.From the entry quick pitch
  • You might expect him to balk, according to his temperament.From the entry according to
  • 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
  • It was a real goat, real enough to have balking and butting tendencies.1914: University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign campus), The Illio, volume 20, page 70. From the entry haedine
  • The hardness of this very balking prayer Is here perceived to be its noblest part .1901, Joel Swartz ·, Poems, page 228. From the entry balking
  • A balking pitcher sends everyone home, including the runner on third—and the visiting team has another loss in the record book.2016, Tom DeMichael, Baseball FAQ: All That's Left to Know About America's Pastime. From the entry balking
  • So feared is the word “nuclear” that there are those who balk at using such harmless phrases as “nuclear family”.1988 December 10, “Unclear Power”, in New Scientist, page 12. From the entry n-word
  • Got his foot jammed between two balks of timber.1913, Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives of New Zealand. From the entry yardrope
  • He balked only when the priest scooped from the pot some of the medicine the woman had prepared and presented it for him to eat.1962, Ian Brook, The Black List, page 48. From the entry gobbet
  • By concentrating on one detail he can practically always balk the pique, the repique and the kapot, if it is necessary to play for safety.1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards…. From the entry pique
  • As one who would not be balked in his determination to spend Sunday in deaconly pursuits, he had set off along the walk.1923, George Jean Nathan, Henry Louis Mencken, The Smart Set: A Magazine of Cleverness, volume 72, page 26. From the entry deaconly
  • The move underscores Toyota’s bet that hybrids will dominate US sales in the near term as consumers balk at high EV prices following the end of tax credits.2025 November 18, Reed Stevenson, “Toyota Lays Out $912 Million Plan to Boost US Hybrid Production”, in Bloomberg News. From the entry hybrid
  • Republicans in the Senate had balked at the climate plan, especially its effort to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for many of its investments.2021 June 30, Farhad Manjoo, “Democrats Have a Year to Save the Planet”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry give away the store
  • Some might agree that membership in the firm is perhaps more compulsory than membership in a municipality, but balk at applying the analogy to the nation.1996, Ugo Pagano, Democracy and Efficiency in the Economic Enterprise, page 73. From the entry compulsory
  • Maybe suburban Sunbelt teens--the shock troops of the antidisco movement--couldn't relate to the disco milieu because they balked at rubbing shoulders with urban blacks or Hispanics in crowded clubs.1991 September 13, Bill Wyman, “Disco without shame”, in Chicago Reader. From the entry antidisco
  • I have little doubt that if President Obama’s economic recovery plan were for Iraq, Republicans would pass it without flinching because, of course, anyone who balked would be considered antipatriotic.2009 February 10, “The Showdown Over the Stimulus”, in New York Times. From the entry antipatriotic

Meaning of balk

  1. noun An uncultivated ridge formed in the open field system, caused by the action of ploughing.
  2. noun The wall of earth at the edge of an excavation.
  3. 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".

Full definition of balk

Questions about balk in a sentence

How do you use balk in a sentence?
Balk is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The horse balked.”
What is a short sentence with balk?
“The horse balked.”
What does balk mean?
Balk means an uncultivated ridge formed in the open field system, caused by the action of ploughing.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: balk (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use balk in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/balk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.