as in refused
to show unwillingness to accept, do, engage in, or agree to
she balked at lending him any more money
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for balked (at)
Verb
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Ares was in development for a decade, but former Disney exec Sean Bailey refused to give up and shepherded the project when serving as head of Disney’s live-action studio.—
Pamela McClintock,
HollywoodReporter,
12 Oct. 2025 -
In southern Gaza, a group opposed to Hamas known as the Popular Forces has refused to lay down its arms.—
Tim Lister,
CNN Money,
12 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Comey received a slight boost in his case to plead his innocence earlier this week when a judge rejected federal prosecutors’ effort to impose broad restrictions on the evidence Comey can access ahead of trial.—
Emily Hallas,
The Washington Examiner,
18 Oct. 2025
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The news caused Salesforce shares to surge as management rejected Wall Street’s narrative of sluggish revenue growth that’s been weighing on investor sentiment in 2025.—
Morgan Chittum,
CNBC,
18 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Ashley Toczylowski previously declined to comment on whether King is linked to the alleged harassing phone calls.—
Bailey Richards,
PEOPLE,
18 Oct. 2025
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After crunching the numbers to exclude armies of data-scraping AI bots, the Wikimedia Foundation says that between March and August this year, the number of Wikipedia page views coming from real humans declined by 8% year-on-year.—
PC Magazine,
PC Magazine,
18 Oct. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Balked (at).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/balked%20%28at%29. Accessed 19 Oct. 2025.
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