to beat up for recruits

Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

1.To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly. [1913 Webster]

The men of the city . . . beat at the door.— Judges. xix. 22.[1913 Webster]

2.To move with pulsation or throbbing. [1913 Webster]

A thousand hearts beat happily.— Byron.[1913 Webster]

3.To come or act with violence; to dash or fall with force; to strike anything, as rain, wind, and waves do. [1913 Webster]

Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below.— Dryden.[1913 Webster]

They [winds] beat at the crazy casement.— Longfellow.[1913 Webster]

The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die.— Jonah iv. 8.[1913 Webster]

Public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon ministers.— Bacon.[1913 Webster]

4.To be in agitation or doubt. [Poetic] [1913 Webster]

To still my beating mind.— Shak.[1913 Webster]

5.(Naut.) To make progress against the wind, by sailing in a zigzag line or traverse. [1913 Webster]

6.To make a sound when struck; as, the drums beat. [1913 Webster]

7.(Mil.) To make a succession of strokes on a drum; as, the drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters. [1913 Webster]

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. [1913 Webster]

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. --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. [1913 Webster]