beck

plural becks

1. NorfolkNorthern EnglandA stream or small river.

   Beck water cold and clear, will never clean your wound

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

   4 more examples

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

   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

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

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

   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, […]

   1908, Collections for a History of Staffordshire, page 107

   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.

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

   Synonyms: brook, burn, creek, stream

plural becks

1. A significant nod, or motion of the head or hand, especially as a call or command.

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

   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

   3 more examples

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

   1645, John Milton, L'Allegro

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

   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

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

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

present singular third person becks · participle present becking · participle past becked · past becked

1. archaicTo nod or motion with the head.

   When gold and silver becks me to come on.

   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]

   2 more examples

   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.

   1896, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, Winter Evening Tales

   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.

   1881, Various, The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III

plural becks

1. A vat.

plural becks

1. obsoleteObsolete form of beak.

   Headed like owles, with beckes 4 uncomely bent

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

plural Becks

1. countableuncountableA surname.

   As Glenn Beck was bashing Sarvis as a GPS-installing LINO on his show,,^([sic]) his muckraking journalists at TheBlaze "revealed" that Sarvis was "bankrolled" by an "Obama bundler."

   2014 March 8, John Vaught Labeaume, “No Thanks, CPAC. This Libertarian Won't Attend a Conservative Love-Fest.”, in Reason Magazine

2. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Covington County, Alabama, United States, likely named after the Beck family.
3. countableuncountableThe River Beck, or The Beck, a minor river in south-east Greater London, England, which becomes the Pool River before joining the Ravensbourne.