beat
Part of speech: noun
verb
adj
Morphological type: simple
Topics: authorship
broadcasting
communications
entertainment
fencing
film
government
hobbies
hunting
journalism
lifestyle
literature
martial-arts
media
military
music
nautical
politics
publishing
sports
television
transport
war
writing
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *bʰew-der.?
Proto-Germanic *bautaną
Proto-West Germanic *bautan
Old English bēatan
Middle English beten
English beat
Inherited 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”).
Cognates
Cognate with Dutch boten, botten, butten (“to push, strike”), German boßen (“to thrash”), Gothic *𐌱𐌰𐌿𐍄𐌰𐌽 (*bautan, “to beat, strike”) (whence, probably, Galician and Portuguese botar (“to expel; to throw”)); also Latin fūstis (“club, cudgel, knobbed stick, staff”), *fūtō (“to strike”), Albanian bahe, hobe (“sling”), Armenian բութ (butʻ), բույթ (buytʻ, “thumb”).
Inflected forms:
form: beats
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: beats
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: beating
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: past
form: beated
pos: verb
tags: nonstandard
past
form: beaten
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: colloquial
participle
past
form: beated
pos: verb
tags: nonstandard
participle
past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: beatest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: beatest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: beats
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: beateth
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: beat
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: beating
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: beaten
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: more beat
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most beat
pos: adj
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: A stroke; a blow.
pos: noun
examples: He, […]with a careless beat, / Struck out the mute creation at a heat.
gloss: A pulsation or throb.
pos: noun
examples: a beat of the heart
the beat of the pulse
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
gloss: A rhythm.
pos: noun
examples: I love watching her dance to a pretty drum beat with a bouncy rhythm!
gloss: A rhythm.
pos: noun
gloss: The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.
pos: noun
gloss: The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency.
pos: noun
gloss: A short pause in a play, screenplay, or teleplay, for dramatic or comedic effect.
pos: noun
gloss: An area of a person's responsibility, especially
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: 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.
[…]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.
"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."
gloss: An area of a person's responsibility, especially
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: As an adult, I became a journalist whose beat is the environment. In a way, I’ve turned my youthful preoccupations into a profession.
gloss: An act of reporting news or scientific results before a rival; a scoop.
pos: noun
tags: dated
examples: It's a beat on the whole country.
gloss: That which beats, or surpasses, another or others.
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
dated
examples: the beat of him
gloss: A precinct.
pos: noun
tags: Southern-US
dated
obsolete
gloss: A place of habitual or frequent resort.
pos: noun
tags: dated
gloss: A place of habitual or frequent resort.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
dated
gloss: A low cheat or swindler.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
examples: a dead beat
“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.
gloss: The act of scouring, or ranging over, a tract of land to rouse or drive out game; also, those so engaged, collectively.
pos: noun
examples: Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the last moment, when the beat is close to them.
gloss: A smart tap on the adversary's blade.
pos: noun
gloss: A makeup look; compare beat one's face.
pos: noun
tags: slang
examples: She made sure to give fans all the details about her beat in the caption.
gloss: To hit; to strike.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: 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.
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 […]
The case of a woman named Qu Hua from Qiqihaer, Heilongjiang, illustrates this possibility. She married a worker named Xu Baocheng in 1980, and they got along very well until she gave birth to a girl. Then Xu immediately began to beat Qu, and forced her and the baby to live in a small shack.
In this account of events, the cards were stacked against Clemons from the beginning. His appeal lawyers have argued that he was physically beaten into making a confession, the jury was wrongfully selected and misdirected, and his conviction largely achieved on individual testimony with no supporting forensic evidence presented.
The attack also afforded Helena to a front-seat view of literal air-to-air melee combat, as one Wildcat pilot of the Cactus Air Force, who was swooping in to help break up the attack, found himself out of machine-gun ammo; instead, he dropped his landing gear, positioned himself above the nearest bomber, and begun beating it to death, in midair, using his landing gear as clubs. After a bit of evasive action that the fighter easily kept up with, the repeated slamming broke something important, and the bomber spiralled down into the sea.
gloss: To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: He danced hypnotically while she beat the atabaque.
gloss: To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: […] the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door […]
The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die.
This public envy, seemeth to beat chiefly upon principal officers or ministers, rather than upon kings, and estates themselves.
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below.
What tale do the roaring ocean, / And the nightwind, bleak and wild, / As they beat at the crazy casement, / Tell to that little child?
gloss: To move with pulsation or throbbing.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: A thousand hearts beat happily.
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?’
gloss: To win against; to defeat or overcome; to do or be better than (someone); to excel in a particular, competitive event.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: 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.
There's nothing in this world beats a 52 Vincent and a red-headed girl.
gloss: To sail to windward using a series of alternate tacks across the wind.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To strike (water, foliage etc.) in order to drive out game; to travel through (a forest etc.) for hunting.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The part of the wood to be beaten for deer sloped all the way from the roadside to the loch.
gloss: To mix food in a rapid fashion. Compare whip.
pos: verb
examples: Beat the eggs and whip the cream.
gloss: To persuade the seller to reduce a price.
pos: verb
tags: UK
transitive
examples: He wanted $50 for it, but I managed to beat him down to $35.
gloss: To indicate by beating or drumming.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: to beat a retreat; to beat to quarters
gloss: To tread, as a path.
pos: verb
examples: While I this unexampled task essay, / Pass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way, / Celestial Dove! divine assistance bring, / Sustain me on thy strong-extended wing,
gloss: To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble.
pos: verb
examples: I know not why any one should waste his time, and beat his head about the Latin grammar, who does not intend to be a critick, or make speeches, and write dispatches in it.
gloss: To be in agitation or doubt.
pos: verb
examples: to still my beating mind
gloss: To make a sound when struck.
pos: verb
examples: The drums beat.
gloss: To make a succession of strokes on a drum.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.
gloss: 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.
pos: verb
gloss: To arrive at a place before someone.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: He beat me there.
The place is empty; we beat the crowd of people who come at lunch.
gloss: To have sexual intercourse.
pos: verb
tags: Multicultural-London-English
intransitive
slang
vulgar
examples: Bruv, she came in just as we started to beat.
Millie B gets ten shags a week. New day, different guy, that's just peek. You can't name a guy that you haven't tried to beat. You can't name a guy that you haven't tried to beat.
gloss: To rob; to cheat or scam.
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
examples: He beat me out of 12 bucks last night.
I already beat him, but he hasn't realized it yet.
When one of 'em runs up a bill here, then goes off and deals somewhere else, and dodges me every time he sees me, that's the man I'm after with a sharp stick. [...] Honest people often get into tight places, and we would rather help 'em than hurt 'em then. But some just try to beat you.
gloss: Exhausted.
pos: adj
tags: US
slang
examples: After the long day, she was feeling completely beat.
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.
gloss: Dilapidated, beat up.
pos: adj
tags: slang
examples: Dude, you drive a beat car like that and you ain’t gonna get no honeys.
gloss: Having impressively attractive makeup.
pos: adj
examples: Her face was beat for the gods!
gloss: Boring.
pos: adj
tags: slang
gloss: Ugly.
pos: adj
tags: slang
Derived words: 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
earnings beat
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
Translations:
lang: Azerbaijani
word: ritm
lang: Bengali
word: তাল
roman: tal
lang: Bulgarian
word: такт
roman: takt
lang: Bulgarian
word: ри́тъм
roman: rítǎm
lang: Dutch
word: beat
lang: Dutch
word: ritme
lang: Dutch
word: puls
lang: Finnish
word: tahti
lang: German
word: Beat
lang: German
word: Takt
lang: Italian
word: ritmo
lang: Italian
word: tempo
lang: Latin
word: rhythmus
lang: Macedonian
word: такт
roman: takt
lang: Malay
word: rentak
lang: Māori
word: taki
lang: Māori
word: ūngeri
lang: Polish
word: rytm
lang: Romanian
word: ritm
lang: Russian
word: разме́р
roman: razmér
lang: Russian
word: ритм
roman: ritm
lang: Spanish
word: ritmo
lang: Swedish
word: rytm
lang: Ukrainian
word: ритм
roman: rytm
lang: Ukrainian
word: такт
roman: takt
lang: Finnish
word: vastuualue
lang: Finnish
word: tontti
lang: French
word: secteur
lang: Spanish
word: sector
lang: Spanish
word: ámbito
lang: Finnish
word: kotipaikka