balking

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of balk

noun

1. A frustration or disappointment; a check.

   “This supernatural world is the world of fulfilled desire, the world where the balkings, the trials and tribulations, the sorrows and the sins are no more, and where life is as the personality would have it […]”

adj

1. That balks.

   “For these, the ground chosen was especially hard and slippery, and in bad condition; and to add to this, the wind, which blew the lath about, was very balking to the competitors.”

   “Here was a very balking answer, but in spite of it, Harold could not help believing that Esther was very far from objecting to the sort of incense he had been offering just then.”

   “No Form was more balking and unfit for achievement of the genuine Drama , however , than the Opera-form with its once-for-all division into vocal num bers , quite heedless of the dramatic matter: however much our opera-composers might toil and moil to stretch them out and multiply them, the unyielding, disconnected botch-work could only fall to rags and tatters in the long run, —as we have seen in its own place.”

   “On the shooter calling, "Pull," the trap would sometimes be pulled at once; at other times after a pause; nothing is more balking to a shooter and likely to make him miss than the latter.”

   “"Exactly. It is tiresome and very balking to have to leave one's business , " said the deacon , who could sympathize with the ready-made clothier's supposititious feelings .”

2. That balks.

   “If there have not been the means to learn, if one knows nothing on a subject, to pretend or try to sympathize is more balking than to give it up.”

   “"Forgive our debts as we also forgive," Goes like a quick and penetrating blade Between the inmost spirit and the soul, —Between the joints and marrow of the bones And shows the thoughts and feelings of the heart. One feels that even more than pardoned sin, He needs a likeness to a pardoning God. The hardness of this very balking prayer Is here perceived to be its noblest part .”

   “These experiences and early impression of my childhood days— the vast, timeless, and still blue sky studded with icy stars glittering like diamonds; the setting sun seemingly a red ball of fire; mountains, hills, and valleys; the tilling of soil and reaping of crops; the pouring of monsoon rain and the flood; and the balking summer heat and humidity, walking alone barefoot with the grazing cattle with so many lodged thorns in my bare feet; […]”

3. That balks.

   “Nowhere else is the mean or unreliable horse so utterly unendurable, even for a day, as about a circus. The balking brute may throw a parade into confusion or cause the most exasperating delay in loading a train.”

   “Before this occurrence taught me the better way, I was quite prone, in dealing with a balking boy, to hold his mind upon the subject of balking.”

   “There are, however, a few tried and tested methods to this madness of making even the most balking child (that would be my beloved Ez) cooperate.”

   “But, there is no work about a general retrial time Geom/G/1 retrial queue with balking customers, a second optional service and Bernoulli vacation.”

   “To this humane new method succeeds a long dissertation on "Balking." which will probably prove very serviceable to American teamsters, with copious directions how to start and manage a balking horse or a balking team, about which the commonest British carter or waggoner knows quite as much as Mr. Rarey.”

4. That balks.

   “These large discrepancies must stem from inconsistencies in interpretation rather than the possibility that one crew was constantly drawing more balking pitchers than another.”

   “Yes, I'm saying umpire shouldn't even make a balk call unless there is evidence that the balking player was deliberately trying to deceive the opposition.”

   “A balking pitcher sends everyone home, including the runner on third—and the visiting team has another loss in the record book.”