# beck
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbɛk/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɛk

### Etymology 1

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.

#### Noun

beck (plural becks)
* (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: […] [Humphrey Lownes] for M[athew] Lownes; I[ohn] Browne; I[ohn] Helme; I[ohn] Busbie, →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.

##### Synonyms

* brook
* burn
* creek
* stream

##### Derived terms

* Beck Foot
* Beck Hole
* beckside
* Troutbeck

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

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.

#### Noun

beck (plural becks)
* 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.

##### Derived terms

* beck and call

##### Translations
#### Verb

beck (third-person singular simple present becks, present participle becking, simple past and past participle becked)
* (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: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: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)
* A vat.

### Etymology 4

From Middle English bec, bek, from Old French bec (“beak”).

#### Noun

beck (plural becks)
* 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

##### Derived terms

* harman-beck

## Portuguese
### Pronunciation

* (Brazil) IPA: /ˈbɛ.ki/, /ˈbɛk/
* (Brazil) IPA: /ˈbɛ.ki/, /ˈbɛk/
** (Southern Brazil) IPA: /ˈbɛk/, /ˈbɛ.ki/
* (Portugal) IPA: /ˈbɛk/

### Noun

beck m (plural becks)
* Alternative spelling of beque

## Swedish
### Etymology

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.

### Pronunciation

* Homophone: bäck

### Noun

beck n
* pitch (a dark, extremely viscous material still remaining after distilling crude oil and tar)

#### Related terms

* barnbeck (“meconium”)
* beckmörk (“pitch dark”)
* beckmörker (“pitch darkness”)
* becksvart (“pitch black”)

### References

* beck in Svensk ordbok (SO)
* beck in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
* beck in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)