What is "balky"

Usage examples of "balky".

The balky animals rode in circles as their riders sought to force them across the bridge.

He lay panting a moment, then started to crawl up the pathway, unwilling to trust his balky ankle on this rocky footing.

At the time she had not known about old plaster, old stairs, old walls, nothing about splintered woodwork and senile plumbing-either balky or incontinent.

Have you noticed the tendency of some things to behave well at first, as though knowing they are on trial, only to turn recalcitrant and balky when they believe they have been accepted?

Now she knew she was turning balky, for good reason, but he would not know that.

She pushed the balky, gawky, protesting cart out of the wind and looked at the woman in the serape, ashamed to be so out of breath after moving less than a dozen yards but unable to help panting.

Tower had been balky about leaving New York even after Jack and George Biondi had threatened to burn his most valuable books right in front of his eyes.

He wondered who was up in the night sky with a balky radar, and whether the chap would make it back to the ground again.

The Lizard tanks were not the slow, balky, unreliable machines England used.

Mizuki pointed out, referring to the balky high-gain antennas which remained in disrepair.

She staggered forward into darkness, pushing her balky body with every bit of will she possessed.

But asking a twelve year old boy to clutch a balky brake lever as a wagon slips and slides down a cliff totally amazes me.

She stuck out her chin, stubborn as a balky beast, and after Jud took a long minute to study the angle of it, he nodded.

The tall windows had been closed against the chill of the afternoon, and she worked at the latch desperately, biting her lip as the balky fastening jammed, then released suddenly, nipping her flesh and drawing a pinpoint of blood.

Knucklebones grabbed his horsetail, jerked him to his knees like a balky reindeer.