beck

• IPA ^(key): /ˈbɛk/
  • Audio (Southern England ): (file)
• Rhymes: -ɛk

From Middle English bek , bekk , becc , from Old English bæc , bec , bæċe , beċe ("beck, brook"), from Proto-Germanic *bakiz ("stream").

Cognate with Old Norse bekkr ("a stream or brook "), Low German bek , beck , German Bach , Dutch beek , Swedish bäck , Doublet of batch . More at beach .

beck (plural becks )

1. (Norfolk , Northern England ) A stream or small river.
   • 1612, Michael Drayton, chapter 1, in [John Selden], editor, Poly-Olbion. Or A Chorographicall Description of Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and Other Parts of this Renowned Isle of Great Britaine, [...] , London: [...] [Humphrey Lownes] for M[athew] Lownes; I[ohn] Browne; I[ohn] Helme; I[ohn] Busbie, →OCLC, page 3:

     [...]Whence, climing to the Cleeves, her selfe she firmlie sets / The Bourns, the Brooks, the Becks, the Rills, the Rivilets[...]

   • 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter XIII, in Wuthering Heights: [...] , volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, [...], →OCLC:

     [...] the sky is blue, and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks are all brim full.

   • 1908, Collections for a History of Staffordshire, page 107:

     This is the boundary at Earnleie: First from Earesbrook and [qu. to] the short thorns, [...] and from the tree to Tudelesbeck, along the beck to the Severn, up along the Severn to Leofric's boundary, [...]

   • 1976, Archie Fisher, "The Witch Of The West-Mer-Lands", in The Man With A Rhyme, Sharon, CT: Folk Legacy Records:

     Beck water cold and clear, will never clean your wound

   • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 102:

     The beck is crossed by a pretty ford and a number of bridges, and in spring the cottages look out over a dancing sea of daffodils.

From Middle English bekken , a shortened form of Middle English bekenen , from Old English bēcnan , bēacnian ("to signify; beckon"), from Proto-West Germanic *baukn , from Proto-Germanic *baukną ("beacon"). More at beacon .

beck (plural becks )

1. A significant nod, or motion of the head or hand, especially as a call or command.
   • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, "The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, [...]", in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [...] (First Folio), London: [...] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 147, column 2:

     Ah, knovv you not the Citie fauours them,
     And they haue troupes of Souldiers at their beck?

   • 1645, John Milton, L'Allegro ‎^[1] :

     Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee
     Jest and youthful Jollity,
     Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
     Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,

   • 1671, John Milton, "The First Book", in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes , London: [...] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey [...], →OCLC, page 2:

     Then forthwith to him takes a chosen band
     Of Spirits likest to himself in guile
     To be at hand, and at his beck appear,

   • 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Oliver Twist; [...] , volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, [...], →OCLC:

     The dog obeyed the significant beck of his finger, and they drew off, stealthily, together.

• beck and call

beck (third-person singular simple present becks , present participle becking , simple past and past participle becked )

1. (archaic ) To nod or motion with the head.
   • c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, "The Life and Death of King Iohn", in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [...] (First Folio), London: [...] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

     When gold and silver becks me to come on.

   • 1896, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, Winter Evening Tales‎^[2] :

     I'll buy so many acres of old Scotland and call them by the Lockerby's name; and I'll have nobles and great men come bowing and becking to David Lockerby as they do to Alexander Gordon.

   • 1881, Various, The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III‎^[3] :

     The becking waiter, that with wreathed smiles, wont to spread for Samuel and Bozzy their "supper of the gods," has long since pocketed his last sixpence; and vanished, sixpence and all, like a ghost at cock-crowing.

See back .

beck (plural becks )

1. A vat.

From Middle English bec , bek , from Old French bec ("beak").

beck (plural becks )

1. Obsolete form of beak .
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, "Book II, Canto IX", in The Faerie Queene. [...] , London: [...] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Headed like owles, with beckes 4 uncomely bent

• harman-beck

beck m (plural becks )

1. alternative spelling of beque

From Old Norse bik , from Middle Low German pik , from Old Saxon pik , from Proto-West Germanic *pik , from Latin pix . See also Dutch pek , German Pech .

• Homophone: bäck

beck n

1. pitch (a dark, extremely viscous material still remaining after distilling crude oil and tar )

• barnbeck ("meconium ")
• beckmörk ("pitch dark ")
• beckmörker ("pitch darkness ")
• becksvart ("pitch black ")

• "beck", in Svensk ordbok [Dictionary of Swedish] (in Swedish)
• "beck", in Svenska Akademiens ordlista [Wordlist of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)
• "beck", in Svenska Akademiens ordbok [Dictionary of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)

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