beat

come out better in a competition, race, or conflict

• “Agassi beat Becker in the tennis championship”
• “We beat the competition”
• “Harvard defeated Yale in the last football game”

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”
• “The teacher used to beat the students”

hit repeatedly

• “beat on the door”
• “beat the table with his shoe”

move rhythmically

• “Her heart was beating fast”

shape by beating

• “beat swords into ploughshares”

make a rhythmic sound

• “Rain drummed against the windshield”
• “The drums beat all night”

glare or strike with great intensity

• “The sun was beating down on us”

move with a thrashing motion

• “The bird flapped its wings”
• “The eagle beat its wings and soared high into the sky”

sail with much tacking or with difficulty

• “The boat beat in the strong wind”

stir vigorously

• “beat the egg whites”
• “beat the cream”

strike (a part of one''s own body) repeatedly, as in great emotion or in accompaniment to music

• “beat one”
• “;”
• “s foot rhythmically”

be superior

• “Reading beats watching television”
• “This sure beats work!”

avoid paying

• “beat the subway fare”

make a sound like a clock or a timer

• “the clocks were ticking”
• “the grandfather clock beat midnight”

move with a flapping motion

• “The bird”

indicate by beating, as with the fingers or drumsticks

• “Beat the rhythm”

move with or as if with a regular alternating motion

• “the city pulsated with music and excitement”

make by pounding or trampling

• “beat a path through the forest”

produce a rhythm by striking repeatedly

• “beat the drum”

strike (water or bushes) repeatedly to rouse animals for hunting

beat through cleverness and wit

• “I beat the traffic”
• “She outfoxed her competitors”

be a mystery or bewildering to

• “This beats me!”
• “Got me--I don”
• “;”
• “;”

wear out completely

• “This kind of work exhausts me”
• “I”
• “;”

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”
• “the conductor set the beat”

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

very tired

• “was all in at the end of the day”
• “so beat I could flop down and go to sleep anywhere”
• “bushed after all that exercise”
• “I”