beat
Noun · Verb · AdjectiveOpen English WordNet
Verb (23)beaten, beats, beating
- come out better in a competition, race, or conflict“Agassi beat Becker in the tennis championship”“We beat the competition”“Harvard defeated Yale in the last football game”Synonyms: beat outcrushshelltrouncevanquishMore general surpass, outstripMore specific overcome, cream, worst, cheat, overpower, get the best, outplay, outdo, outfight, eliminate +7 moreInvolves winSimilar outwit, overreach
- give a beating to; subject to a beating, either as a punishment or as an act of aggression“Thugs beat him up when he walked down the street late at night”“The teacher used to beat the students”Synonyms: beat upwork overMore general act, moveMore specific flog, thrash, clobber, knock cold, cane, pistol-whip, soak, rough up, spank, strong-arm +1 moreInvolves hit
- hit repeatedly“beat on the door”“beat the table with his shoe”More general strikeMore specific hammer, deck, thrash, bastinado, full, paste, whang, beetle
- move rhythmically“Her heart was beating fast”Synonyms: poundthumpMore general moveMore specific pulsate, flap, thrash, palpitate
- shape by beating“beat swords into ploughshares”More general shape, formMore specific forge, hammer
- make a rhythmic sound“Rain drummed against the windshield”“He drummed his fingers on the table”Synonyms: drumthrumMore general sound, go
- glare or strike with great intensity“The sun was beating down on us”
- move with a thrashing motion“The bird flapped its wings”“The eagle beat its wings and soared high into the sky”Synonyms: flap
- sail with much tacking or with difficulty“The boat beat in the strong wind”
- stir vigorously“beat the egg whites”“beat the cream”Synonyms: scramble
- strike (a part of one's own body) repeatedly, as in great emotion or in accompaniment to music“beat one's breast”“beat one's foot rhythmically”
- be superior“Reading beats watching television”“This sure beats work!”
- avoid paying“beat the subway fare”Synonyms: bunk
- make a sound like a clock or a timer“the clocks were ticking”“the grandfather clock beat midnight”Synonyms: tickticktockticktack
- move with a flapping motion“The bird's wings were flapping”Synonyms: flap
- indicate by beating, as with the fingers or drumsticks“Beat the rhythm”
- move with or as if with a regular alternating motion“the city pulsated with music and excitement”Synonyms: pulsatequiver
- make by pounding or trampling“beat a path through the forest”
- produce a rhythm by striking repeatedly“beat the drum”
- strike (water or bushes) repeatedly to rouse animals for hunting
- beat through cleverness and wit“I beat the traffic”“She outfoxed her competitors”Synonyms: outwitoverreachoutsmartoutfoxcircumvent
- be a mystery or bewildering to“This beats me!”“Got me — I don't know the answer!”“a vexing problem”“This question really stuck me”Synonyms: perplexvexstickgetpuzzlemystifybaffleposebewilderflummoxstupefynonplusgravelamazedumbfound
- wear out completely“This kind of work exhausts me”“I'm beat”“He was all washed up after the exam”Synonyms: exhaustwash uptuckertucker out
Noun (10)beats
- a regular route for a sentry or policeman“in the old days a policeman walked a beat and knew all his people by name”Synonyms: roundType of path, route
- the rhythmic contraction and expansion of the arteries with each beat of the heart“he could feel the beat of her heart”Synonyms: pulsepulsationheartbeatType of periodic event, recurrent eventKinds throb, systole, diastole
- the basic rhythmic unit in a piece of music“the piece has a fast rhythm”“the conductor set the beat”Synonyms: rhythmmusical rhythmType of musical timeKinds backbeat, free rhythm, measured rhythm, upbeat, syncopation, downbeat
- a single pulsation of an oscillation produced by adding two waves of different frequencies; has a frequency equal to the difference between the two oscillationsType of oscillation, vibration
- a member of the beat generation; a nonconformist in dress and behaviorSynonyms: beatnikType of nonconformist, recusantMember of beat generation, beats
- the sound of stroke or blow“he heard the beat of a drum”Type of sound
- (prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verseSynonyms: metermetremeasurecadence
- a regular rate of repetition“the cox raised the beat”
- a stroke or blow“the signal was two beats on the steam pipe”
- the act of beating to windward; sailing as close as possible to the direction from which the wind is blowing
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Translations
Verb to hit, to knock, to pound, to strike
- Spanish
- batir
- French
- battre
- German
- schlagen
- Italian
- battere
- Portuguese
- bater
- Turkish
- vurmak
- Russian
- бить bitʹ
- Arabic
- ضَرَبَ ḍaraba
- Chinese
- 打 dǎ
- Japanese
- 殴る naguru
25 more languages
- Dutch
- slaan
- Polish
- bić
- Swedish
- slå
- Korean
- 치다 chida
- Vietnamese
- đập
- Hungarian
- üt
- Portuguese (PT)
- bater
- Chinese (Trad.)
- 打 dǎ
- Albanian
- rrah
- Catalan
- batre
- Czech
- bít
- Danish
- slå
- Esperanto
- bati
- Finnish
- lyödä
- Icelandic
- slá
- Kurdish
- lê dan
- Latvian
- sist
- Lithuanian
- mušti
- Norwegian
- slå
- Romanian
- bate
- Slovak
- tĺcť
- Slovenian
- tolči
- Swahili
- chapa
- Welsh
- baeddu
- Yiddish
- שלאָגן shlogn
Verb to win against
- Spanish
- vencer
- German
- schlagen
- Italian
- battere
- Portuguese
- bater
- Russian
- побежда́ть pobeždátʹ
- Dutch
- overwinnen
- Polish
- bić
- Korean
- 이기다 igida
- Hungarian
- megver
- Portuguese (PT)
- bater
Verb to strike or pound repeatedly
The main translation for each meaning, from the langtolang.com multilingual dictionary. Each word links to its full entry there.
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: OE. beaten, beten, AS. beátan; akin to Icel. bauta, OHG. bōzan. Cf. 1st Butt, Button.
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.— Ex. xxx. 36.
They did beat the gold into thin plates.— Ex. xxxix. 3.
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.— Matthew Prior
4. To dash against, or strike, as with water or wind.
A frozen continent... beat with perpetual storms.— John Milton
5. To tread, as a path.
Pass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way.— Sir Richard Blackmore
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.— William Hickling Prescott
For loveliness, it would be hard to beat that.— Matthew Arnold
7. To cheat; to chouse; to swindle; to defraud; — often with out. colloquial
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?— John Locke
9. Military 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. colloquial — 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.” Robert South — To beat the dust. Horsemanship (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.
1. To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
The men of the city... beat at the door.— Judges. xix. 22.
2. To move with pulsation or throbbing.
A thousand hearts beat happily.— George Noel Gordon, Ld. Byron
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.— John Dryden
They [winds] beat at the crazy casement.— Henry W. Longfellow
The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die.— Jonah iv. 8.
Public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon ministers.— Francis, Baron Verulam Bacon
4. To be in agitation or doubt. poetic
To still my beating mind.— William Shakespeare
5. Nautical 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. Military 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 Nautical, a wind which necessitates tacking in order to make progress. — To beat about, to try to find; to search by various means or ways. Joseph Addison — 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.
1. A stroke; a blow.
He, with a careless beat, Struck out the mute creation at a heat.— John Dryden
2. A recurring stroke; a throb; a pulsation; as, a beat of the heart; the beat of the pulse.
3. Music (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 reënforcement 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, intransitive verb, 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. informal
Beat of drum Military, 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.
Weary; tired; fatigued; exhausted. colloquial
Quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed.— Charles Dickens
1. One that beats, or surpasses, another or others; as, the beat of him. colloquial
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.— Scribner's Mag.
(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.” Encyc. of Sport.
Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the last moment, when the beat is close to them.— Encyc. of Sport.
(c) Fencing A smart tap on the adversary's blade.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: +PJC, 1913 supplement