Beck

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -É›k

From Old Norse bekkr ("a stream or brook"). Cognate with German Bach. More at beach.

Cognate with low German bek or beck

Full definition of beck

Noun

1. (Norfolk, Northern English dialect) A stream or small river.
• DraytonThe brooks, the becks, the rills.

Synonyms

• brook
• burn
• creek
• stream

A shortened form of beckon, from Old English bēcnan, from Proto-Germanic *baukną ("beacon").

Noun

1. A significant nod, or motion of the head or hand, especially as a call or command.To be at the beck and call of someone.

Verb

1. (archaic) To nod or motion with the head.
• ShakespeareWhen gold and silver becks me to come on.
• 1896, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, Winter Evening Tales Chapter , "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 Chapter , 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.

Noun

1. A vat.

Noun

1. Obsolete form of beak