Online Encyclopedia
Make a correction
Your email address will not appear on the site. Note, comments may take some time to be approved.
Back to article:
BAULK, or BALK (a word common to Teutonic languages, meaning a ridge, partition, or beam)
Your email:
Article name:
Article content:
BAULK, or BALK (a word common to Teutonic languages, meaning a ridge, partition, or beam), the ridge left unploughed between furrows or ploughed fields; also the uncultivated. strip of land used as a boundary in the " open-field " system of agriculture. From the meaning of something left untouched comes that of a hindrance or check, so of a horse stopping short of an obstacle, of the " baulk-line " in billiards, or of the`deceptive motion of the pitcher in baseball. From the other original meaning, i.e. " beam," comes the use of the word for the cross or tie-beam of a roof, or for a large log of timber sawn'to a one or one and a half foot square section (see JoltdERY).