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Beat   /bit/   Listen
verb
Beat  v. t.  (past beat; past part. beaten; pres. part. beating)  
1.
To strike repeatedly; to lay repeated blows upon; as, to beat one's breast; to beat iron so as to shape it; to beat grain, in order to force out the seeds; to beat eggs and sugar; to beat a drum. "Thou shalt beat some of it (spices) very small." "They did beat the gold into thin plates."
2.
To punish by blows; to thrash.
3.
To scour or range over in hunting, accompanied with the noise made by striking bushes, etc., for the purpose of rousing game. "To beat the woods, and rouse the bounding prey."
4.
To dash against, or strike, as with water or wind. "A frozen continent... beat with perpetual storms."
5.
To tread, as a path. "Pass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way."
6.
To overcome in a battle, contest, strife, race, game, etc.; to vanquish, defeat, or conquer; to surpass or be superior to. "He beat them in a bloody battle." "For loveliness, it would be hard to beat that."
7.
To cheat; to chouse; to swindle; to defraud; often with out. (Colloq.)
8.
To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble. "Why should any one... beat his head about the Latin grammar who does not intend to be a critic?"
9.
(Mil.) To give the signal for, by beat of drum; to sound by beat of drum; as, to beat an alarm, a charge, a parley, a retreat; to beat the general, the reveille, the tattoo. See Alarm, Charge, Parley, etc.
10.
To baffle or stump; to defy the comprehension of (a person); as, it beats me why he would do that.
11.
To evade, avoid, or escape (blame, taxes, punishment); as, to beat the rap (be acquitted); to beat the sales tax by buying out of state.
To beat down, to haggle with (any one) to secure a lower price; to force down. (Colloq.)
To beat into, to teach or instill, by repetition.
To beat off, to repel or drive back.
To beat out, to extend by hammering.
To beat out of a thing, to cause to relinquish it, or give it up. "Nor can anything beat their posterity out of it to this day."
To beat the dust. (Man.)
(a)
To take in too little ground with the fore legs, as a horse.
(b)
To perform curvets too precipitately or too low.
To beat the hoof, to walk; to go on foot.
To beat the wing, to flutter; to move with fluttering agitation.
To beat time, to measure or regulate time in music by the motion of the hand or foot.
To beat up, to attack suddenly; to alarm or disturb; as, to beat up an enemy's quarters.
Synonyms: To strike; pound; bang; buffet; maul; drub; thump; baste; thwack; thrash; pommel; cudgel; belabor; conquer; defeat; vanquish; overcome.


Beat  v. i.  (past beat; past part. beaten; pres. part. beating)  
1.
To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly. "The men of the city... beat at the door."
2.
To move with pulsation or throbbing. "A thousand hearts beat happily."
3.
To come or act with violence; to dash or fall with force; to strike anything, as rain, wind, and waves do. "Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below." "They (winds) beat at the crazy casement." "The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die." "Public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon ministers."
4.
To be in agitation or doubt. (Poetic) "To still my beating mind."
5.
(Naut.) To make progress against the wind, by sailing in a zigzag line or traverse.
6.
To make a sound when struck; as, the drums beat.
7.
(Mil.) To make a succession of strokes on a drum; as, the drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.
8.
(Acoustics & Mus.) To sound with more or less rapid alternations of greater and less intensity, so as to produce a pulsating effect; said of instruments, tones, or vibrations, not perfectly in unison.
A beating wind (Naut.), a wind which necessitates tacking in order to make progress.
To beat about, to try to find; to search by various means or ways.
To beat about the bush, to approach a subject circuitously.
To beat up and down (Hunting), to run first one way and then another; said of a stag.
To beat up for recruits, to go diligently about in order to get helpers or participators in an enterprise.
To beat the rap, to be acquitted of an accusation; especially, by some sly or deceptive means, rather than to be proven innocent.


noun
Beat  n.  
1.
A stroke; a blow. "He, with a careless beat, Struck out the mute creation at a heat."
2.
A recurring stroke; a throb; a pulsation; as, a beat of the heart; the beat of the pulse.
3.
(Mus.)
(a)
The rise or fall of the hand or foot, marking the divisions of time; a division of the measure so marked. In the rhythm of music the beat is the unit.
(b)
A transient grace note, struck immediately before the one it is intended to ornament.
4.
(Acoustics & Mus.) A sudden swelling or reenforcement of a sound, recurring at regular intervals, and produced by the interference of sound waves of slightly different periods of vibrations; applied also, by analogy, to other kinds of wave motions; the pulsation or throbbing produced by the vibrating together of two tones not quite in unison. See Beat, v. i., 8.
5.
A round or course which is frequently gone over; as, a watchman's beat; analogously, for newspaper reporters, the subject or territory that they are assigned to cover; as, the Washington beat.
6.
A place of habitual or frequent resort.
7.
A cheat or swindler of the lowest grade; often emphasized by dead; as, a dead beat; also, deadbeat. (Low)
Beat of drum (Mil.), a succession of strokes varied, in different ways, for particular purposes, as to regulate a march, to call soldiers to their arms or quarters, to direct an attack, or retreat, etc.
Beat of a watch, or Beat of a clock, the stroke or sound made by the action of the escapement. A clock is in beat or out of beat, according as the stroke is at equal or unequal intervals.


Beat  n.  
1.
One that beats, or surpasses, another or others; as, the beat of him. (Colloq.)
2.
The act of one that beats a person or thing; as:
(a)
(Newspaper Cant) The act of obtaining and publishing a piece of news by a newspaper before its competitors; also, the news itself; also called a scoop or exclusive. "It's a beat on the whole country."
(b)
(Hunting) The act of scouring, or ranging over, a tract of land to rouse or drive out game; also, those so engaged, collectively. "Driven out in the course of a beat." "Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the last moment, when the beat is close to them."
(c)
(Fencing) A smart tap on the adversary's blade.


adjective
Beat  adj.  Weary; tired; fatigued; exhausted. (Colloq.) "Quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Beat" Quotes from Famous Books



... direction of the lighted avenue of tents and shacks under the trees. He caught a last look in Joanne's eyes of anxiety and fear. Glancing back out of the darkness that swallowed him up, he saw her pause for a moment in the lighted doorway, and look in his direction. His heart beat faster. Joyously he laughed under his breath. It was strangely new and pleasing to have some one thinking of ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... scream and cry. Then our self-sacrificing nurses walk with us; they rock us, they swing us, they toss us up and down, they jounce us from top to bottom, till the wonder is that every organ in our bodies is not displaced. They beat on glass and tin and iron to distract our attention and drown out our noise by a bigger one; they shake back and forth before our eyes all things that glitter and blaze; they shout and sing songs; the house and the neighborhood are searched ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... "and, mark me, if a face goes for aught, he's general enough to beat Gage—and that the man paused, and then added: "that sluggard Howe. And would to God I ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... together with ropes, boys and girls from Bristol town. Her master, my father that was (I shall know him again), got tired of her, and wanted to give her away to one of his kernes. She would not have that; so he hung her up hand and foot, and beat her that she died. There was an abbey hard by, and the Church laid on him a penance,—all that they dared get out of him,—that he should give me to the monks, being then a seven-years' boy. Well, I grew up in that abbey; they taught me my fa fa mi fa: but I liked better conning of ballads and hearing ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... word from home—we kept an eager look-out for shore-craft putting out, and when our messenger arrived after a long beat, the boat warp was curled into his hand and the side ladder rattled to his feet before he had time to hail the deck. With him came a coasting pilot seeking employ, a voluble Welshman, who did not leave us a minute in ignorance of the fact that "he knew th' coast, indeed, ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone


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