The Collaborative International Dictionary
Beat \Beat\ (b[=e]t), v. t. [imp. Beat; p. p. Beat, Beaten; p. pr. & vb. n. Beating.] [OE. beaten, beten, AS. be['a]tan; akin to Icel. bauta, OHG. b[=o]zan. Cf. 1st Butt, Button.]
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To strike repeatedly; to lay repeated blows upon; as, to beat one's breast; to beat iron so as to shape it; to beat grain, in order to force out the seeds; to beat eggs and sugar; to beat a drum.
Thou shalt beat some of it [spices] very small.
--Ex. xxx. 36.They did beat the gold into thin plates.
--Ex. xxxix. 3. To punish by blows; to thrash.
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To scour or range over in hunting, accompanied with the noise made by striking bushes, etc., for the purpose of rousing game.
To beat the woods, and rouse the bounding prey.
--Prior. -
To dash against, or strike, as with water or wind.
A frozen continent . . . beat with perpetual storms.
--Milton. -
To tread, as a path.
Pass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way.
--Blackmore. -
To overcome in a battle, contest, strife, race, game, etc.; to vanquish, defeat, or conquer; to surpass or be superior to.
He beat them in a bloody battle.
--Prescott.For loveliness, it would be hard to beat that.
--M. Arnold. To cheat; to chouse; to swindle; to defraud; -- often with out. [Colloq.]
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To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble.
Why should any one . . . beat his head about the Latin grammar who does not intend to be a critic?
--Locke. (Mil.) To give the signal for, by beat of drum; to sound by beat of drum; as, to beat an alarm, a charge, a parley, a retreat; to beat the general, the reveille, the tattoo. See Alarm, Charge, Parley, etc.
to baffle or stump; to defy the comprehension of (a person); as, it beats me why he would do that.
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to evade, avoid, or escape (blame, taxes, punishment); as, to beat the rap (be acquitted); to beat the sales tax by buying out of state. To beat down, to haggle with (any one) to secure a lower price; to force down. [Colloq.] To beat into, to teach or instill, by repetition. To beat off, to repel or drive back. To beat out, to extend by hammering. To beat out of a thing, to cause to relinquish it, or give it up. ``Nor can anything beat their posterity out of it to this day.'' --South. To beat the dust. (Man.)
To take in too little ground with the fore legs, as a horse.
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To perform curvets too precipitately or too low.
To beat the hoof, to walk; to go on foot.
To beat the wing, to flutter; to move with fluttering agitation.
To beat time, to measure or regulate time in music by the motion of the hand or foot.
To beat up, to attack suddenly; to alarm or disturb; as, to beat up an enemy's quarters.
Syn: To strike; pound; bang; buffet; maul; drub; thump; baste; thwack; thrash; pommel; cudgel; belabor; conquer; defeat; vanquish; overcome.
Usage examples of "to beat time".
He had performed many eminent services for the crown, had great natural and acquired parts, adorned with integrity and honour, but so ill an ear for music, that his detractors reported he had been often known to beat time in the wrong place.
Women are accustomed in this dance to lift up their petticoats a little, or else to beat time themselves upon the tambourine: this, otherwise, is done by a third person on the monotonous drum,-the changes in the time alone consisting in the greater or less rapidity with which the strokes follow one another.
Hither she had been led by two of her disguised ravishers, and on being thrust into the little cell, she found herself in the presence of an old sibyl, who kept murmuring to herself a Saxon rhyme, as if to beat time to the revolving dance which her spindle was performing upon the floor.