beck

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beck

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• IPA^(key): /ˈbɛk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• 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: […] H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes; I[ohn] Browne; I[ohn] Helme; I[ohn] Busbie, published 1613, →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 (lyrics and music), “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)

2. 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?

   • 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; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], 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^[1]:

     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^[2]:

     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 (SO)
• beck in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• beck in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)