baulk [OE] The verb baulk (US variant balk) is used with a sense of ‘refusal’ in phrases such as baulk at an idea, or baulk at doing something. This notion developed, together with the verb senses ‘hesitate’ and ‘hinder’ in Late Middle English, through a use of the noun as ‘obstacle’. The early spelling of the noun was balc, from an Old Norse word for ‘partition’. The first English usage was ‘unploughed ridge’, later ‘land left unploughed by mistake’, which was then extended to ‘blunder, omission’ [LME]. The sense ‘beam of wood’ is Middle English. Bollards [ME], from Old Norse bolr ‘bole’ of a tree’, originally short posts on a ship’s deck or on a quayside, may be related.