beat
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: bēt
ipa: /biːt/
homophone: beet
rhymes: -iːt
Forms: form: beats
Etymology: From Middle English beten, from Old English bēatan (“to beat, pound, strike, lash, dash, thrust, hurt, injure”), from Proto-West Germanic *bautan, from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to push, strike”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewd- (“to hit, strike”). Cognate with dialectal Dutch boten (“to push, strike”), Icelandic bauta (“to hit, strike”).
Compare also Old Irish fo·botha (“he threatened”), Latin confutō (“to strike down”), fūstis (“stick, club”), Albanian bahe (“sling”), Lithuanian baudžiù, Old Armenian բութ (butʻ)).
Senses: examples: text: He, […]with a careless beat, / Struck out the mute creation at a heat.
ref: 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:
glosses: A stroke; a blow.
examples: text: a beat of the heart
text: the beat of the pulse
glosses: A pulsation or throb.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: 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.
examples: text: I love watching her dance to a pretty drum beat with a bouncy rhythm!
glosses: A rhythm.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: A rhythm.
The rhythm signalled by a conductor or other musician to the members of a group of musicians.
glosses: The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.
glosses: The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency
topics: authorship
broadcasting
communications
film
journalism
literature
media
publishing
television
writing
glosses: A short pause in a play, screenplay, or teleplay, for dramatic or comedic effect.
examples: text: to walk the beat
text: 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.
ref: 1886, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 3, in A Study in Scarlet:
text: […]the rise of embedding police into schools – so-called School Resource Officers (SROs), who are employed by the local police, but whose “beat” is a school. Those officers report to the local police department and not the school, and can, and frequently do, have different priorities.
ref: 2019 January 29, Mike Masnick, “How My High School Destroyed An Immigrant Kid's Life Because He Drew The School's Mascot”, in Techdirt:
text: "We are looking at being able to fly [drones] tens of miles from base, which is going to make a huge difference. It is the equivalent of having bobbies on the beat."
ref: 2025 July 23, Paul Clifton, “Air force: drones' developing railway role”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 31:
glosses: An area of a person's responsibility, especially
The route patrolled by a police officer or a guard.
examples: text: As an adult, I became a journalist whose beat is the environment. In a way, I’ve turned my youthful preoccupations into a profession.
ref: 2020 April, Elizabeth Kolbert, “Why we won't avoid a climate catastrophehttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2020/04/why-we-wont-avoid-a-climate-catastrophe-feature/”, in National Geographic:
topics: journalism
media
glosses: An area of a person's responsibility, especially
The primary focus of a reporter's stories (such as police/courts, education, city government, business etc.).
synonyms: newsbeat
examples: text: It's a beat on the whole country.
ref: 1898, unknown author, Scribner's Magazine, volume 24:
glosses: An act of reporting news or scientific results before a rival; a scoop.
examples: text: the beat of him
glosses: That which beats, or surpasses, another or others.
glosses: A precinct.
glosses: A place of habitual or frequent resort.
glosses: A place of habitual or frequent resort.
An area frequented by gay men in search of sexual activity. See gay beat.
examples: text: a dead beat
text: “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.
ref: 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXVIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC:
glosses: A low cheat or swindler.
examples: text: Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the last moment, when the beat is close to them.
ref: 1911, Hedley Peek, Frederick George Aflalo, Encyclopaedia of Sport:
topics: hobbies
hunting
lifestyle
glosses: The act of scouring, or ranging over, a tract of land to rouse or drive out game; also, those so engaged, collectively.
topics: fencing
government
hobbies
lifestyle
martial-arts
military
politics
sports
war
glosses: A smart tap on the adversary's blade.
examples: text: She made sure to give fans all the details about her beat in the caption.
ref: 2018, Leah Prinzivalli, “Kylie Jenner Shared a Sneak Peek of Her New Kylie Cosmetics Blush on Instagram”, in Allure:
glosses: A makeup look; compare beat one's face.
Derived terms: afrobeat
afterbeat
backbeat
back beat
bad beat
Balearic beat
barber beats
beatbox
beat cop
beat for nothing
beat frequency oscillator
Beatles
beatless
beatmaker
beatmatch
beatmatching
beatmix
beat panel
beat parry
beatscape
beatscript
beat sheet
beatsman
beatsmith
beaty
big beat
blast beat
bluebeat
Bo Diddley beat
breakbeat
character beat
counterbeat
cross-beat
D-beat
deadbeat
downbeat
dramatic beat
drumbeat
easybeat
Eskibeat
Eurobeat
forebeat
freakbeat
heartbeat
hoofbeat
hyperbeat
inbeat
interbeat
march to a different beat
march to the beat of a different drum
march to the beat of a different drummer
march to the beat of one's own drum
march to the beat of one's own drummer
match beat for beat
Merseybeat
midbeat
misbeat
miss a beat
new beat
offbeat
onbeat
on the beat
outbeat
police beat
popular beat combo
pound a beat
pulsebeat
skip a beat
story beat
swingbeat
tailbeat
take a beat
type beat
underbeat
upbeat
walk the beat
wingbeat
worldbeat
Related terms: sense: piece of hip-hop music
word: backing track