beat

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See also Beat, and béat

Contents

English[edit]

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Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English beten, from Old English bēatan (“to beat, pound, strike, lash, dash, thrust, hurt, injure”), from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to push, strike”) (compare Low German boten, German boßen, Old Norse bauta), from Proto-Indo-European *bhau- (compare Old Irish fo-botha 'he threatened', Latin confutāre 'to strike down', fūstis 'stick, club', Albanian bahe 'sling', Lithuanian baudžiù, Bulgarian bútam 'I beat, knock', Armenian but' 'stump').

Noun[edit]

beat (plural beats)

  1. A pulsation or throb.
  2. 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.
  3. A rhythm.
  4. The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency
  5. A short pause in a play, screenplay, or teleplay, for dramatic or comedic effect.
  6. The route of a patrol by a police officer or a guard as in walk the beat.
    • 1886, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 3, A Study in Scarlet:
      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.
  7. (by extension) An area of a person's responsibility, especially
    1. In journalism, the primary focus of a reporter's stories (such as police/courts, education, city government, business etc.).
  8. The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.
Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from beat (noun)
Translations[edit]
pulsation
pulse — see pulse
rhythm
interference between two tones of almost equal frequency
pause with the camera focused on one shot
law enforcement: route of a patrol by a guard or officer
primary focus of a reporter's stories
See also[edit]
  • (piece of hip-hop music): track

Verb[edit]

beat (third-person singular simple present beats, present participle beating, simple past beat, past participle beaten or beat)

  1. (transitive) To hit; to knock; to pound; to strike.
    As soon as she heard that Wiktionary was shutting down, she went into a rage and beat the wall with her fists until her knuckles bled.
    • 2012 August 21, Pilkington, Ed, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, The Guardian:
      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.
  2. (transitive) To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm.
    He danced hypnotically while she beat the atabaque.
  3. (transitive) To win against; to defeat or overcome; to do better than, outdo, or excel (someone) in a particular, competitive event.
    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.
  4. (intransitive, nautical) To sail to windward using a series of alternate tacks across the wind.
  5. (transitive) To strike (water, foliage etc.) in order to drive out game; to travel through (a forest etc.) for hunting.
    • 1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate 2012, p. 81:
      The part of the wood to be beaten for deer sloped all the way from the roadside to the loch.
  6. To mix food in a rapid fashion. Compare whip.
    Beat the eggs and whip the cream.
  7. (transitive, UK, In haggling for a price) of a buyer, to persuade the seller to reduce a price
    He wanted $50 for it, but I managed to beat him down to $35.
  8. (nonstandard) Past participle of beat
    • 1825?, "Hannah Limbrick, Executed for Murder", in The Newgate Calendar: comprising interesting memoirs of the most notorious characters, page 231:
      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 [...]
  9. (transitive) To indicate by beating or drumming.
    to beat a retreat; to beat to quarters
Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from beat (verb)
Translations[edit]
to hit, to knock, to pound, to strike
to strike or pound repeatedly
to win against
nautical
to whip
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

Adjective[edit]

beat (comparative more beat, superlative most beat)

  1. (US slang) dilapidated, beat up
    After the long day, she was feeling completely beat.
  2. exhausted
    Dude, you drive a beat car like that and you ain’t gonna get no honeys.
  3. (gay slang) fabulous
    Her makeup was beat!
  4. (slang) boring
  5. (slang, of a person) ugly
Synonyms[edit]
Translations[edit]
fabulous
exhausted

Etymology 2[edit]

From beatnik

Noun[edit]

beat (plural beats)

  1. A beatnik.
Derived terms[edit]

References[edit]

  • DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465.

Anagrams[edit]

Catalan[edit]

Adjective[edit]

beat m (feminine beata, masculine plural beats, feminine plural beates)

  1. saint, beatified

Noun[edit]

beat m (plural beats)

  1. monk

Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From English

Noun[edit]

beat m (plural beats, diminutive beatje)

  1. A beat, rhythmic pulsation, notably in music

Anagrams[edit]

Finnish[edit]

Noun[edit]

beat

  1. A beat (in music)

Declension[edit]

Declension of beat (type risti)
singular plural
nominative beat beatit
genitive beatin beatien
partitive beatiä beatejä
accusative beat
beatin		 beatit
inessive beatissä beateissä
elative beatistä beateistä
illative beatiin beateihin
adessive beatillä beateillä
ablative beatiltä beateiltä
allative beatille beateille
essive beatinä beateinä
translative beatiksi beateiksi
instructive – beatein
abessive beatittä beateittä
comitative – beateineen

Italian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

English

Adjective[edit]

beat (invariable)

  1. beat (50s US literary and 70s UK music scenes)

Noun[edit]

beat m (invariable)

  1. beat (rhythm accompanying music)

Anagrams[edit]

Latin[edit]

Verb[edit]

beat

  1. third-person singular present active indicative of beō

Romanian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin bibitus 'drunk', from bibere (“drink”).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA: [be̯at]

Adjective[edit]

beat 4 nom/acc forms

  1. drunk, intoxicated; tipsy

Declension[edit]

declension of beat
singular plural
masculine neuter feminine masculine neuter feminine
nominative/
accusative		 indefinite beat beată beți bete
definite beatul beata beții betele
genitive/
dative		 indefinite beat bete beți bete
definite beatului betei beților betelor

Synonyms[edit]

Antonyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Related terms[edit]

Volapük[edit]

Noun[edit]

beat (plural beats)

  1. happiness

Declension[edit]

declension of beat
singular plural
nominative beat beats
genitive beata beatas
dative beate beates
accusative beati beatis
predicative beatu beatus
vocative o beat! o beats!
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