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The Collaborative International Dictionary
To beat the rap

Beat \Beat\, v. i.

  1. To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.

    The men of the city . . . beat at the door.
    --Judges. xix. 2

  2. 2. To move with pulsation or throbbing.

    A thousand hearts beat happily.
    --Byron.

  3. To come or act with violence; to dash or fall with force; to strike anything, as rain, wind, and waves do.

    Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below.
    --Dryden.

    They [winds] beat at the crazy casement.
    --Longfellow.

    The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die.
    --Jonah iv. 8.

    Public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon ministers.
    --Bacon.

  4. To be in agitation or doubt. [Poetic]

    To still my beating mind.
    --Shak.

  5. (Naut.) To make progress against the wind, by sailing in a zigzag line or traverse.

  6. To make a sound when struck; as, the drums beat.

  7. (Mil.) To make a succession of strokes on a drum; as, the drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.

  8. (Acoustics & Mus.) To sound with more or less rapid alternations of greater and less intensity, so as to produce a pulsating effect; -- said of instruments, tones, or vibrations, not perfectly in unison.

    A beating wind (Naut.), a wind which necessitates tacking in order to make progress.

    To beat about, to try to find; to search by various means or ways.
    --Addison.

    To beat about the bush, to approach a subject circuitously.

    To beat up and down (Hunting), to run first one way and then another; -- said of a stag.

    To beat up for recruits, to go diligently about in order to get helpers or participators in an enterprise.

    To beat the rap, to be acquitted of an accusation; -- especially, by some sly or deceptive means, rather than to be proven innocent.

Usage examples of "to beat the rap".

Ruthven and Jean are safe and well -- your friends, Vyland, are under lock and key and talking their heads off to beat the rap.