What is "balked"

Usage examples of "balked".

Less inured to tough setbacks, too riled to accept the wormwood of defeat, the senior enchantress paced the shed in mincing steps and balked tension.

His pursuit had bogged down in the farmlands, their zealous chase balked by timber fences, sheepfolds, and occupied bull pens.

It balked, then resumed its belabored pace through the deepening snowdrifts.

Her porcelain-fair features flushed to rage when discussion touched upon Arithon, or else chilled to an ice-sculpture mask of balked hatred as she choked on the rags of her shame.

At each crossroads and turn, Lirenda was balked by piled-up snow, street stalls swarming with commerce and stopped carts, and racing urchins playing a northcountry game with flat sticks and a stitched leather ball.

Since the servant balked at tripping the latch, Lirenda was left the irrevocable choice of whether to proceed or turn back.

As if a wind had punched gaping holes through his brain, admitting a range of alien sensation, Jieret balked at the opened gateway to new knowledge.

Breathing the thin, icy air in swift gulps, Elaira balked on the lower landing.

The ignominious simplicity enraged her, that the Betrayer should have balked her bold play with no more than a commonplace firestorm.

Shrinking himself, crying curses for the necessity, Braggen lashed their balked rumps with the ends of his reins and drove them to forsake their sound instincts.

His bold, Hanshire arrogance masked a consuming concern, that his plans would be balked despite the extreme measures taken.

Arithon bit his lip and wanted with all the balked force of the tears he had no safe place to shed.

Imagination seized on distortions and ran rampant, until quivering flesh balked at mapping the scope of an ordeal driven amok.

The howling clang of unsheathed steel shattered hearing, strike after desperate, balked strike.

In damning clarity, he discerned how his weaknesses made him the flesh-and-blood puppet to mow down any fool who balked his intent to kill Lysaer.