Definition of "beat"

beat¹

/biːt/

noun
plural beats
1. A stroke; a blow.
  Quotations
  He, […] with a careless beat, / Struck out the mute creation at a heat.
  1687, [John Dryden], “(please specify the page number)”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […]
2. A pulsation or throb.
3. (music) 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.
  1. (music) The rhythm signalled by a conductor or other musician to the members of a group of musicians.
5. The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.
6. The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency
7. (authorship) A short pause in a play, screenplay, or teleplay, for dramatic or comedic effect.
8. (by extension) An area of a person's responsibility, especially
  1. The route patrolled by a police officer or a guard.
    Quotations
    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.
    1886, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 3, in A Study in Scarlet
    […] 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.
    2019 January 29, Mike Masnick, “How My High School Destroyed An Immigrant Kid's Life Because He Drew The School's Mascot”, in Techdirt‎
  2. (journalism) The primary focus of a reporter's stories (such as police/courts, education, city government, business etc.).
    Quotations
    As an adult, I became a journalist whose beat is the environment. In a way, I’ve turned my youthful preoccupations into a profession.
    2020 April, Elizabeth Kolbert, “Why we won't avoid a climate catastrophe”, in National Geographic
9. (dated) An act of reporting news or scientific results before a rival; a scoop.
  Quotations
  It's a beat on the whole country.
  1898, unknown author, Scribner's Magazine, volume 24
10. (colloquial, dated) That which beats, or surpasses, another or others.
11. (dated or obsolete, Southern US) A precinct.
12. (dated) A place of habitual or frequent resort.
  1. (Australia) An area frequented by gay men in search of sexual activity. See gay beat.
13. (archaic) A low cheat or swindler.
  Quotations
  “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.
  1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXVIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […]
14. (hunting) The act of scouring, or ranging over, a tract of land to rouse or drive out game; also, those so engaged, collectively.
  Quotations
  Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the last moment, when the beat is close to them.
  1911, Hedley Peek, Frederick George Aflalo, Encyclopaedia of Sport
15. (fencing) A smart tap on the adversary's blade.
16. (slang) A makeup look; compare beat one's face.
  Quotations
  She made sure to give fans all the details about her beat in the caption.
  2018, Leah Prinzivalli, “Kylie Jenner Shared a Sneak Peek of Her New Kylie Cosmetics Blush on Instagram”, in Allure‎
verb
third-person singular simple present beats, present participle beating, simple past beat, past participle beaten or (especially colloquial) beat
1. (transitive) To hit; to strike.
  Quotations
  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 […]
  1825?, “Hannah Limbrick, Executed for Murder”, in The Newgate Calendar: comprising interesting memoirs of the most notorious characters, page 231
  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.
  1988, Emily Honig, Gail Hershatter, “Divorce”, in Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980's‎, Stanford, Cali.: Stanford University Press, page 219
  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.
  2012 August 21, Ed Pilkington, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, in The Guardian‎
  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.
  2021 March 10, Drachinifel, 5:50 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - The Big Night Battle: Night 1 (IJN 3(?) : 2 USN)‎, archived from the original on 17 October 2022
2. (transitive) To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm.
3. (intransitive) To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
  Quotations
  […] the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door […]
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Judges 19:22
  The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Jonah 4:8
  This public envy, seemeth to beat chiefly upon principal officers or ministers, rather than upon kings, and estates themselves.
  1625, Francis Bacon, “Of Envy”, in Essayes
  Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below.
  1662 January 1, John Dryden, To the Lord Chancellor Hyde, line 144
  What tale do the roaring ocean, / And the nightwind, bleak and wild, / As they beat at the crazy casement, / Tell to that little child?
  1850, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Twilight”, in The Seaside and the Fireside
4. (intransitive) To move with pulsation or throbbing.
  Quotations
  A thousand hearts beat happily.
  1812–18, George Gordon Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto 3, verse 21
  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?’
  1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], canto IV
5. (transitive) To win against; to defeat or overcome; to do or be better than (someone); to excel in a particular, competitive event.
  Quotations
  There's nothing in this world beats a 52 Vincent and a red-headed girl.
  1991, Richard Thompson (lyrics and music), “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”
6. (intransitive, nautical) 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.
  Quotations
  The part of the wood to be beaten for deer sloped all the way from the roadside to the loch.
  1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate, published 2012, page 81
8. To mix food in a rapid fashion. Compare whip.
9. (transitive, UK, in haggling for a price of a buyer) To persuade the seller to reduce a price.
10. (transitive) To indicate by beating or drumming.
11. To tread, as a path.
  Quotations
  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,
  1712, Sir Richard Blackmore, Creation: A Philosophical Poem, book 1
12. To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble.
  Quotations
  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.
  1693, John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education
13. To be in agitation or doubt.
  Quotations
  to still my beating mind
  1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]
14. To make a sound when struck.
15. (military, intransitive) To make a succession of strokes on a drum.
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.
18. (intransitive, MLE, MTE, slang, vulgar) To have sexual intercourse.
  Quotations
  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.
  2017-02-08, “Big (Millie B reply)”‎performed by Sophie Aspin
19. (transitive, slang) To rob.
  Quotations
  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.
  1900, Fame, quoting Retail Trade Advocate, page 472

beat²

/biːt/

verb
1. simple past tense of beat
2. (especially colloquial) past participle of beat
adjective
comparative more beat, superlative most beat
1. (US slang) Exhausted.
  Quotations
  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.
  1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 10, in On the Road, Viking Press, part 2
2. Dilapidated, beat up.
3. (African-American Vernacular and gay slang) Having impressively attractive makeup.
4. (slang) Boring.
5. (slang, of a person) Ugly.

beat³

/biːt/

noun
plural beats
1. A beatnik.
  Quotations
  The beats were pioneers with no destination, changing the world one impulse at a time.
  2008 March, David Wills, Beatdom, number 3
adjective
comparative more beat, superlative most beat
1. Relating to the Beat Generation.

Definition of "beat"

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beat2

verb

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beat¹

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