beck

See also: Beck

English

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛk

Etymology 1

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

Noun

beck (plural becks)

1. (Norfolk, Northern England) A stream or small river.
   • Drayton

     The brooks, the becks, the rills.

Synonyms

• brook
• burn
• creek
• stream

Etymology 2

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

Noun

beck (plural becks)

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

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.
   • Shakespeare

     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.

Etymology 3

See back.

Noun

beck (plural becks)

1. A vat.

Etymology 4

Noun

beck (plural becks)

1. Obsolete form of beak.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Spenser to this entry?)