beat

/bˈit/ · 1 syllable

Meaning

verb

come out better in a competition, race, or conflict
“Agassi beat Becker in the tennis championship”
give a beating to; subject to a beating, either as a punishment or as an act of aggression
“Thugs beat him up when he walked down the street late at night”
hit repeatedly
“beat on the door”
move rhythmically
“Her heart was beating fast”
shape by beating
“beat swords into ploughshares”
make a rhythmic sound
“Rain drummed against the windshield”
glare or strike with great intensity
“The sun was beating down on us”
move with a thrashing motion
“The bird flapped its wings”
sail with much tacking or with difficulty
“The boat beat in the strong wind”
stir vigorously
“beat the egg whites”
strike (a part of one's own body) repeatedly, as in great emotion or in accompaniment to music
“beat one's breast”
be superior
“Reading beats watching television”

noun

a regular route for a sentry or policeman
“in the old days a policeman walked a beat and knew all his people by name”
the rhythmic contraction and expansion of the arteries with each beat of the heart
“he could feel the beat of her heart”
the basic rhythmic unit in a piece of music
“the piece has a fast rhythm”
a single pulsation of an oscillation produced by adding two waves of different frequencies; has a frequency equal to the difference between the two oscillations
a member of the beat generation; a nonconformist in dress and behavior
the sound of stroke or blow
“he heard the beat of a drum”
(prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verse
a regular rate of repetition
“the cox raised the beat”
a stroke or blow
“the signal was two beats on the steam pipe”
the act of beating to windward; sailing as close as possible to the direction from which the wind is blowing

adjective

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