beat
Etymology 1Translations
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Etymology 1
From Middle English beten, from Old English bēatan, from Proto-West Germanic *bautan, from Proto-Germanic *bautaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewd-.
Compare Old Irish fobotha, Latin confutō, fūstis ("stick, club"), Albanian bahe, Lithuanian baudžiù, xcl բութ).
Pronunciation Nounbeat (plural beats)
- A stroke; a blow.
- 1687, [John Dryden], “(please specify the page number)”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC ↗:
- He, […] with a careless beat, / Struck out the mute creation at a heat.
- A pulsation or throb.
- a beat of the heart
- the beat of the pulse
- (music) A pulse on the beat level, the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic unit. Thus a beat is the basic time unit of a piece.
- A rhythm.
- I love watching her dance to a pretty drum beat with a bouncy rhythm!
- The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.
- The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency
- (authorship) A short pause in a play, screenplay, or teleplay, for dramatic or comedic effect.
- (by extension) An area of a person's responsibility, especially
- The route patrolled by a police officer or a guard.
- to walk the beat
- (journalism) The primary focus of a reporter's stories (such as police/courts, education, city government, business etc.).
- Synonyms: newsbeat
- The route patrolled by a police officer or a guard.
- (dated) An act of reporting news or scientific results before a rival; a scoop.
- 1898, unknown author, Scribner's Magazine, volume 24:
- It's a beat on the whole country.
- (colloquial, dated) That which beats, or surpasses, another or others.
- the beat of him
- (dated or obsolete, Southern US) A precinct.
- (dated) A place of habitual or frequent resort.
- (AU) An area frequented by gay men in search of sexual activity. See gay beat.
- (archaic) A low cheat or swindler.
- a dead beat
- 1884 December 9, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXVIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer's Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC ↗:
- “If I get away I sha’n’t be here,” I says, “to prove these rapscallions ain’t your uncles, and I couldn’t do it if I was here. I could swear they was beats and bummers, that’s all, though that’s worth something.
- (hunting) The act of scouring, or ranging over, a tract of land to rouse or drive out game; also, those so engaged, collectively.
- 1911, Hedley Peek, Frederick George Aflalo, Encyclopaedia of Sport:
- Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the last moment, when the beat is close to them.
- (fencing) A smart tap on the adversary's blade.
- (slang) A makeup look; compare beat one's face.
- Russian: уда́р
- French: battement
- Italian: pulsazione, battito
- Portuguese: batida
- Russian: бие́ние
- Spanish: latido, pulsación
- German: Schlag, Grundschlag
- Spanish: pulsaciones (por minuto)
- German: Schwebung
- Russian: бие́ние
- French: ronde
- Italian: ronda
- Spanish: jurisdicción
- Portuguese: batida
beat (beats, present participle beating; simple past beat, past participle beaten)
- (transitive) To hit; to strike.
- Synonyms: knock, pound, strike, hammer, whack, Thesaurus:attack, Thesaurus:hit
- As soon as she heard that her father had died, she went into a rage and beat the wall with her fists until her knuckles bled.
- (transitive) To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm.
- He danced hypnotically while she beat the atabaque.
- (intransitive) To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
- (intransitive) To move with pulsation or throbbing.
- 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, Canto IV:
- O heart, how fares it with thee now,
That thou should’st fail from thy desire,
Who scarcely darest to inquire,
‘What is it makes me beat so low?’
- (transitive) To win against; to defeat or overcome; to do or be better than (someone); to excel in a particular, competitive event.
- Jan had little trouble beating John in tennis. He lost five games in a row.
- No matter how quickly Joe finished his test, Roger always beat him.
- I just can't seem to beat the last level of this video game.
- (intransitive, nautical) To sail to windward using a series of alternate tacks across the wind.
- (transitive) To strike (water, foliage etc.) in order to drive out game; to travel through (a forest etc.) for hunting.
- To mix food in a rapid fashion. Compare whip.
- Beat the eggs and whip the cream.
- (transitive, UK, in haggling for a price of a buyer) To persuade the seller to reduce a price.
- Synonyms: negotiate
- He wanted $50 for it, but I managed to beat him down to $35.
- (transitive) To indicate by beating or drumming.
- to beat a retreat; to beat to quarters
- To tread, as a path.
- To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble.
- To be in agitation or doubt.
- 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act IV, scene i]:
- to still my beating mind
- To make a sound when struck.
- The drums beat.
- (military, intransitive) To make a succession of strokes on a drum.
- The drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.
- To sound with more or less rapid alternations of greater and lesser intensity, so as to produce a pulsating effect; said of instruments, tones, or vibrations not perfectly in unison.
- (transitive) To arrive at a place before someone.
- He beat me there.
- The place is empty; we beat the crowd of people who come at lunch.
- (intransitive, MLE, MTE, slang, vulgar) To have sexual intercourse.
- Synonyms: do it, get it on, have sex, shag, Thesaurus:copulate
- Bruv, she came in just as we started to beat.
- (transitive, slang) To rob; to cheat or scam.
- He beat me out of 12 bucks last night.
- I already beat him, but he hasn't realized it yet.
Conjugation of beat
- French: battre
- German: schlagen, hauen
- Italian: colpire, battere
- Portuguese: bater
- Russian: бить
- Spanish: golpear, pegar, aporrear, batir, apalizar
- French: battre
- German: schlagen
- Italian: percuotere
- Portuguese: bater
- Russian: бить
- Spanish: percutir, golpear (repetidamente)
- French: battre
- Spanish: (heart) latir (el corazón)
- French: vaincre, battre
- German: schlagen, gewinnen
- Italian: battere
- Portuguese: bater
- Russian: побежда́ть
- Spanish: vencer, derrotar, ganar, aventajar
- French: remonter au vent
- Russian: лави́ровать
- Spanish: barloventear
- French: battre, fouetter
- German: schlagen
- Portuguese: bater
- Russian: взбива́ть
- Spanish: batir, revolver, sacudir
- Russian: сбить (цену)
- French: battre
- French: se mettre martel en tête
From Middle English bet, from Old English bēot.
Pronunciation- enPR: bēt, bĕt, IPA: /biːt/, /bɛt/
- simple past tense of beat
- (especially, colloquial) past participle of beat
beat
- (US slang) Exhausted.
- After the long day, she was feeling completely beat.
- 1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 10, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC ↗, part 2:
- I stayed in San Francisco a week and had the beatest time of my life. Marylou and I walked around for miles, looking for food-money.
- (slang) Dilapidated, beat up.
- Dude, you drive a beat car like that and you ain’t gonna get no honeys.
- (AAVE and gay slang) Having impressively attractive makeup.
- Her face was beat for the gods!
- (slang) Boring.
- (slang, of a person) Ugly.
- (exhausted) See also Thesaurus:fatigued
- (dilapidated) See also Thesaurus:ramshackle
- (boring) See also Thesaurus:boring
- (ugly) See also Thesaurus:ugly
From beatnik, or beat generation.
Pronunciation Nounbeat (plural beats)
- A beatnik.
beat
- Relating to the Beat Generation.
- beat poetry
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004
