[See BILK sb.]
1. trans. In Cribbage: To balk or spoil any one’s score in his crib.
1651. Cleveland, Poems, 24. So many Cards, i’th stock, and yet be bilkt?
1680. Cotton, Compl. Gamester, viii. If he find no Games in them, nor help by the Card that was turn’d up, which he takes into his hand, then he is bilkt, and sometimes it so happens that he is both bilkt in hand and crib.
1791. J. Williams (A. Pasquin), Cribbage, 65. Bilking the Crib of your adversary is a very essential part of the game of Cribbage … any cards which are not likely to make sequences, are proper cards to bilk your adversary.
1850. Bohn’s Hand-bk. Games, ‘Baulking’ or ‘bilking’ the crib.
2. To balk (hope, expectation); to cheat, deceive, betray.
1672. Marvell, Reh. Transp., I. 27. When we have search’d all over, we find ourselves bilk’d in our expectation.
a. 1683. Oldham, Wks. & Rem. (1686), 48. Hopes often bilkt, and Sought Preferment lost.
1774. Westm. Mag., II. 145. Hapless woman … Bilk’d while she’s young, and ancient without friends!
1822. Hazlitt, Table-t., II. xv. 351. Native talents at work … to bilk their consciences, and salve their reputation.
1829. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), I. 293. Fate … may be to a certain extent bilked.
3. To ‘do (a person) out’ of (his due); to cheat, defraud; to evade payment of (a debt).
1672. Locke, in Fox Bourne, Life, I. v. 268. A man that had bilked one of the most considerable men of the place.
1692. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), II. 412. Beleiving the persons therein would bilk the coachman.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Praise Poverty, Wks. 1730, I. 98. A … scoundrel who knows no pleasure beyond … bilking bauds and coaches.
1723. De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 198. We bilked the captain of his ransom money.
1766. New Bath Guide, vi. (1807), 40. ’Tis hard to be bilk’d of our fare.
1785. Cowper, Tiroc., 327. His skill … In bilking tavern bills.
1853. Merivale, Rom. Rep., viii. (1867), 224. In bilking a creditor or negotiating a loan.
4. To elude, evade, escape from, ‘give the slip’ to.
1679. R. W., O. Cromwell’s Ghost, 2.
| I bilkt my Keeper, and with wondrous Pain, | |
| Once more I mount my Native Soyl again. |
1713. Guardian, No. 124 (1756), II. 159. The country lass! who, her cow bilking, leaves her milking, For a green gown on the grass.
1720. Gay, Poems (1745), II. 64. She scorn’d to bilk her assignation.
1826. Scott, Woodst., xxvii. I bilked Everard in order to have my morning draught.
1852. Thackeray, Esmond, II. i. (1894), 161. T’other recollected how a constable had been bilked.
