PIE *bhel(2) から、膨らむ、太鼓を打つ、語源的には bole, 幹と同じ、もともとは木の幹に積まれた障害物、後に障害物、恐れるもの。-PIE *kから、強調のために音を固くする、hear, listen, hark, listenと比較される。
英語の語源
balk
balk: [OE] There are two separate strands of meaning in balk, or baulk, as it is also spelled. When it first entered English in the 9th century, from Old Norse bálkr, it meant a ‘ridge of land, especially one between ploughed furrows’, from which the modern sense ‘stumbling block, obstruction’ developed. It is not until about 1300 that the meaning ‘beam of timber’ appears in English, although it was an established sense of the Old Norse word’s Germanic ancestor *balkon (source also of English balcony).
The common element of meaning in these two strands is something like ‘bar’, which may have been present in the word’s ultimate Indo- European base *bhalg- (possible source of Greek phálagx ‘log, phalanx’). => balcony, phalanx
balk (n.)
Old English balca "ridge, bank," from or influenced by Old Norse balkr "ridge of land," especially between two plowed furrows, both from Proto-Germanic *balkon- (cognates: Old Saxon balko, Danish bjelke, Old Frisian balka, Old High German balcho, German Balken "beam, rafter"), from PIE *bhelg- "beam, plank" (cognates: Latin fulcire "to prop up, support," fulcrum "bedpost;" Lithuanian balziena "cross-bar;" and possibly Greek phalanx "trunk, log, line of battle"). Modern senses are figurative, representing the balk as a hindrance or obstruction (see balk (v.)). Baseball sense is first attested 1845.
balk (v.)
late 14c., "to leave an unplowed ridge when plowing," from balk (n.). Extended meaning "to omit, intentionally neglect" is mid-15c. Most modern senses are figurative, from the notion of a balk in the fields as a hindrance or obstruction: sense of "stop short" (as a horse confronted with an obstacle) is late 15c.; that of "to refuse" is 1580s. Related: Balked; balking.
例文
1. To emancipate all mankind，we will balk at no sacrifice.even that of our lives.
全人類の解放のためには、命を犠牲にしても惜しまない。
2.Even biology undergraduates may balk at animal experiments.