Beat

Pronunciation

• enPR: bÄ“t, IPA: /biːt/
• Homophones: beet
• Rhymes: -iːt

From Middle English beten, from Old English bēatan ("to beat, pound, strike, lash, dash, thrust, hurt, injure"), from Proto-Germanic *bautaną ("to push, strike") (compare Low German boten, German boßen, Old Norse bauta), from Proto-Indo-European *bhau- (compare Old Irish fo·botha ("he threatened"), Latin confutō ("I strike down"), fūstis ("stick, club"), Albanian bahe ("sling"), Lithuanian baudžiù, Bulgarian бутам (butam, "I beat, knock"), Old Armenian բութ). Compare Occitan batre, French battre.

Full definition of beat

Noun

1. A stroke; a blow.
• DrydenHe, with a careless beat,
  Struck out the mute creation at a heat.
2. A pulsation or throb.a beat of the heart; the beat of the pulse
3. 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.
4. A rhythm.
5. (music) A transient grace note, struck immediately before the one it is intended to ornament.
6. The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency
7. A short pause in a play, screenplay, or teleplay, for dramatic or comedic effect.
8. The route patrolled by a police officer or a guard.to walk the beat
• There has been a bad business during the night at 3, Lauriston Gardens, off the Brixton Road. Our man on the beat saw a light there about two in the morning, and as the house was an empty one, suspected that something was amiss.
9. (by extension) An area of a person's responsibility, especially
1. In journalism, the primary focus of a reporter's stories (such as police/courts, education, city government, business etc.).
10. (dated) A place of habitual or frequent resort.
11. (archaic) A low cheat or swindler.''a dead beat
12. The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.

Derived terms

Verb

1. (transitive) To hit; to knock; to pound; to strike.As soon as she heard that Wiktionary was shutting down, she went into a rage and beat the wall with her fists until her knuckles bled.
2. (transitive) To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm.He danced hypnotically while she beat the atabaque.
3. (intransitive) To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
• Bible, Judges xix. 22The men of the city ... beat at the door.
• DrydenRolling tempests vainly beat below.
• LongfellowThey winds beat at the crazy casement.
• Bible, Jonath iv. 8The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die.
• Francis BaconPublic envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon ministers.
4. (intransitive) To move with pulsation or throbbing.
• ByronA thousand hearts beat happily.
5. (transitive) To win against; to defeat or overcome; to do better than, outdo, or excel (someone) 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.
6. (intransitive, nautical) To sail to windward using a series of alternate tacks across the wind.
7. (transitive) To strike (water, foliage etc.) in order to drive out game; to travel through (a forest etc.) for hunting.
• 1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate 2012, p. 81:The part of the wood to be beaten for deer sloped all the way from the roadside to the loch.
8. To mix food in a rapid fashion. Compare whip.Beat the eggs and whip the cream.
9. (transitive, UK, In haggling for a price) of a buyer, to persuade the seller to reduce a priceHe wanted $50 for it, but I managed to beat him down to $35.
10. (nonstandard) Past participle of beat
• 1825?, "Hannah Limbrick, Executed for Murder", in The Newgate Calendar: comprising interesting memoirs of the most notorious characters, page 231:Thomas Limbrick, who was only nine years of age, said he lived with his mother when Deborah was beat: that his mother throwed her down all along with her hands; and then against a wall ...
11. (transitive) To indicate by beating or drumming.to beat a retreat; to beat to quarters
12. To tread, as a path.
• Blackmorepass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way
13. To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble.
• John LockeWhy should any one ... beat his head about the Latin grammar who does not intend to be a critic?
14. To be in agitation or doubt.
• Shakespeareto still my beating mind
15. To make a sound when struck.The drums beat.
16. (military, intransitive) To make a succession of strokes on a drum.The drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.
17. 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.

Derived terms

Adjective

1. (US slang) exhaustedAfter the long day, she was feeling completely beat.
2. dilapidated, beat upDude, you drive a beat car like that and you ain’t gonna get no honeys.
3. (gay slang) fabulousHer makeup was beat!
4. (slang) boring
5. (slang, of a person) ugly

Synonyms

From beatnik

Noun

1. A beatnik.

Derived terms

• beat generation

Anagrams

• abet
• bate
• beta, Beta