balky
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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He’s got a balky knee, and now a painful biceps, and the Dodgers have kept him off the mound for a moment, but what happens in October?
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2026
I jury-rigged a heating element for our Kenmore refrigerator’s balky ice-maker water-feed tube.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026
There’s an argument to be made that the feds could believe they have a balky case and want to bloody up Adams in the public eye ahead of a trial.
From Slate ● Sep. 12, 2024
The original May 6 launch was scuttled hours before takeoff due to a balky rocket valve.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2024
After quite a struggle and a tug of war with a balky zipper, we finally got the suits on, and our helmets and gloves locked in place.
From "Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story" by Michael Collins
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After dozens of false starts, he wants to get two of his balkier clients to say yes to a house he shows them.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Carter may also find the Federal Reserve balkier than before.
From Time Magazine Archive
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I was seated at my typewriter and the book was balkier than usual, and I wished that the clumper at the door would go away.
From Dawn O'Hara, the Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber
By the afternoon, three horses remained — the toughest and balkiest to get into trailers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2017
It was the balkiest Yankee machine since Manager Joe McCarthy got behind the steering wheel nine years ago.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Joe made more news as baseball's balkiest holdout.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Thus will begin the second session of the 95th Congress, one of the boldest and balkiest in memory.
From Time Magazine Archive
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All those stately equipages were good, and the one that fell to us mounted the hill to our hotel by a grade so insinuating that the balkiest horse in Frascati could hardly have suspected it.
From Roman Holidays, and Others by William Dean Howells