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beat

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beat¹

  • /biːt/

Sounds like beet · Rhymes with -iːt

Where it comes from

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”).

noun beats

  1. A stroke; a blow. He, […]with a careless beat, / Struck out the mute creation at a heat.
  2. A pulsation or throb. a beat of the heart
  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. I love watching her dance to a pretty drum beat with a bouncy rhythm!
  5. The rhythm signalled by a conductor or other musician to the members of a group of musicians.
  6. The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.
  7. The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency.
  8. A short pause in a play, screenplay, or teleplay, for dramatic or comedic effect.
  9. broadly The route patrolled by a police officer or a guard. to walk the beat
  10. broadly The primary focus of a reporter's stories (such as police/courts, education, city government, business etc.). As an adult, I became a journalist whose beat is the environment. In a way, I’ve turned my youthful preoccupations into a profession.
  11. dated An act of reporting news or scientific results before a rival; a scoop. It's a beat on the whole country.
  12. colloquial, dated That which beats, or surpasses, another or others. the beat of him
  13. Southern US, dated, obsolete A precinct.
  14. dated A place of habitual or frequent resort.
  15. Australia, dated An area frequented by gay men in search of sexual activity. See gay beat.
  16. archaic A low cheat or swindler. a dead beat
  17. The act of scouring, or ranging over, a tract of land to rouse or drive out game; also, those so engaged, collectively. Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the last moment, when the beat is close to them.
  18. A smart tap on the adversary's blade.
  19. slang A makeup look; compare beat one's face. She made sure to give fans all the details about her beat in the caption.

verb beats · beating · beat · beated · beaten

  1. transitive To hit; to strike. 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.
  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. […] the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door […]
  4. intransitive To move with pulsation or throbbing. A thousand hearts beat happily.
  5. transitive To win against; to defeat or overcome; to do or be better than (someone); to excel in a particular, competitive event. Jan had little trouble beating John in tennis. He lost five games in a row.
  6. intransitive 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. 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. UK, transitive To persuade the seller to reduce a price. He wanted $50 for it, but I managed to beat him down to $35.
  10. transitive To indicate by beating or drumming. to beat a retreat; to beat to quarters
  11. To tread, as a path. 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,
  12. To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble. 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.
  13. To be in agitation or doubt. to still my beating mind
  14. To make a sound when struck. The drums beat.
  15. intransitive To make a succession of strokes on a drum. The drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.
  16. 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.
  17. transitive To arrive at a place before someone. He beat me there.
  18. Multicultural London English, intransitive, slang, vulgar To have sexual intercourse. Bruv, she came in just as we started to beat.
  19. slang, transitive To rob; to cheat or scam. He beat me out of 12 bucks last night.

beat²

  • /biːt/
  • /bɛt/ often, proscribed

Sounds like beet, bet · Rhymes with -iːt, -ɛt

Where it comes from

From Middle English bet (simple past of beten "to beat"), from Old English bēot (simple past of bēatan "to beat"). Middle English bet would regularly yield *beet; the modern form is influenced by the present stem and the past participle beaten, perhaps by analogy with the Early Modern English paradigm eat:eat (“ate”):eaten. Pronunciations with /ɛ/ (from Middle English bette, alternative simple past of beten) are possibly analogous to read (/ɹɛd/), led, met, etc.

verb

  1. simple past tense of beat
  2. colloquial, especially, participle, past past participle of beat

adjective more beat · most beat

  1. US, slang Exhausted. After the long day, she was feeling completely beat.
  2. slang Dilapidated, beat up. Dude, you drive a beat car like that and you ain’t gonna get no honeys.
  3. Having impressively attractive makeup. Her face was beat for the gods!
  4. slang Boring.
  5. slang Ugly.

beat³

  • /biːt/

Sounds like beet · Rhymes with -iːt

Where it comes from

From beatnik, or beat generation.

noun beats · Beat

  1. A beatnik. The beats were pioneers with no destination, changing the world one impulse at a time.

adjective more beat · most beat · Beat

  1. Relating to the Beat Generation. beat poetry

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