Definition: beat
Source: WordNet (r) 1.7
beat
adj : (informal) 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'm dead after that
long trip" [syn: all in, beat, bushed, dead]
n 1: a regular route for a sentry or policeman; "in the old days
a policeman walked a beat and knew all his people by
name" [syn: round]
2: the rhythmic contraction and expansion of the arteries with
each beat of the heart; "he could feel the beat of her
heart" [syn: pulse, pulsation, heartbeat]
3: the basic rhythmic unit in a piece of music; "the piece has
a fast rhythm"; "the conductor set the beat" [syn: rhythm,
musical rhythm]
4: 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
5: a member of the beat generation; a nonconformist in dress
and behavior [syn: beatnik]
6: the sound of stroke or blow; "he heard the beat of a drum"
7: (prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verse [syn: meter,
measure, cadence]
8: a regular rate of repetition; "the cox raised the beat"
9: a stroke or blow; "the signal was two beats on the steam
pipe"
10: the act of beating to windward; sailing as close as possible
to the direction from which the wind is blowing
v 1: 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" [syn: beat out, crush, trounce, vanquish]
2: 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" [syn: beat up]
3: hit repeatedly; "beat on the door"; "beat the table with his
shoe"
4: move rhythmically; "Her heart was beating fast" [syn: pound,
thump]
5: shape by beating; "beat swords into ploughshares"
6: make a rhythmic sound: "Rain drummed against the
windshield"; "The drums beat all night" [syn: drum, thrum]
7: glare or strike with great intensity; "The sun was beating
down on us"
8: move with a thrashing motion; "The bird flapped its wings";
"The eagle beat its wings and soared high into the sky"
[syn: flap]
9: sail with much tacking or with difficulty; "The boat beat in
the strong wind"
10: stir vigorously; "beat the egg whites"; beat the cream"
[syn: scramble]
11: strike (a part of one's own body) repeatedly, as in great
emotion or in accompaniment to music; "beat one's
breast"; "beat one's foot rhythmically"
12: be superior: "Reading beats watching television"; "This sure
beats work!"
13: deprive somebody of something by deceit; "The con-man beat
me out of $50"; "This salesman ripped us off!"; "we were
cheated by their clever-sounding scheme"; "They chiseled
me out of my money" [syn: cheat, rip off, chisel]
14: make a sound like a clock or a timer; "the clocks were
ticking"; "the grandfather clock beat midnight" [syn: tick,
ticktock, ticktack]
15: move with a flapping motion; "The bird's wings were
flapping" [syn: flap]
16: indicate by beating; as with the fingers or drumsticks;
"Beat the rhythm"
17: make by pounding or trampling; "beat a path through the
forest"
18: produce a rhythm by striking repeatedly: "beat the drum"
19: strike (water or bushes) repeatedly to rouse animals for
hunting
20: beat through cleverness and wit; "I beat the traffic"; "She
outfoxed her competitors" [syn: outwit, overreach, outsmart,
outfox, circumvent]
21: be a mystery or bewildering to: "This beats me!" "Got me--I
don't know the answer!" [syn: perplex, get, puzzle,
mystify, baffle, bewilder, flummox, stupefy, stupify,
nonplus, gravel, amaze, dumbfound]
22: wear out completely; "This kind of work exhausts me"; "I'm
beat"; "He was all washed up after the exam" [syn: exhaust,
wash up, tucker, tucker out]
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Beat \Beat\, n.
1. One that beats, or surpasses, another or others; as, the
beat of him. [Colloq.]
2. The act of one that beats a person or thing; as:
(a) (Newspaper Cant) The act of obtaining and publishing a
piece of news by a newspaper before its competitors;
also, the news itself; a scoop.
It's a beat on the whole country. --Scribner's
Mag.
(b) (Hunting) The act of scouring, or ranging over, a
tract of land to rouse or drive out game; also, those
so engaged, collectively. ``Driven out in the course
of a beat.'' --Encyc. of Sport.
Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the
last moment, when the beat is close to them.
--Encyc. of
Sport.
(c) (Fencing) A smart tap on the adversary's blade.
Undulation \Un`du*la"tion\, n. [Cf. F. ondulation.]
1. The act of undulating; a waving motion or vibration; as,
the undulations of a fluid, of water, or of air; the
undulations of sound.
2. A wavy appearance or outline; waviness. --Evelyn.
3. (Mus.)
(a) The tremulous tone produced by a peculiar pressure of
the finger on a string, as of a violin.
(b) The pulsation caused by the vibrating together of two
tones not quite in unison; -- called also beat.
4. (Physics) A motion to and fro, up and down, or from side
to side, in any fluid or elastic medium, propagated
continuously among its particles, but with no translation
of the particles themselves in the direction of the
propagation of the wave; a wave motion; a vibration.
Beat \Beat\, 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?zan. Cf. 1st Butt, Button.] 1. 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. 2. To punish by blows; to thrash. 3. 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. 4. To dash against, or strike, as with water or wind. A frozen continent . . . beat with perpetual storms. --Milton. 5. To tread, as a path. Pass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way. --Blackmore. 6. To overcome in a battle, contest, strife, race, game, etc.; to vanquish or conquer; to surpass. He beat them in a bloody battle. --Prescott. For loveliness, it would be hard to beat that. --M. Arnold. 7. To cheat; to chouse; to swindle; to defraud; -- often with out. [Colloq.] 8. 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. 9. (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 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.) (a) To take in too little ground with the fore legs, as a horse. (b) 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.
Beat \Beat\, n.
1. A stroke; a blow.
He, with a careless beat, Struck out the mute
creation at a heat. --Dryden.
2. A recurring stroke; a throb; a pulsation; as, a beat of
the heart; the beat of the pulse.
3. (Mus.)
(a) The rise or fall of the hand or foot, marking the
divisions of time; a division of the measure so
marked. In the rhythm of music the beat is the unit.
(b) A transient grace note, struck immediately before the
one it is intended to ornament.
4. (Acoustics & Mus.) A sudden swelling or re["e]nforcement
of a sound, recurring at regular intervals, and produced
by the interference of sound waves of slightly different
periods of vibrations; applied also, by analogy, to other
kinds of wave motions; the pulsation or throbbing produced
by the vibrating together of two tones not quite in
unison. See Beat, v. i., 8.
5. A round or course which is frequently gone over; as, a
watchman's beat.
6. A place of habitual or frequent resort.
7. A cheat or swindler of the lowest grade; -- often
emphasized by dead; as, a dead beat. [Low]
Beat of drum (Mil.), a succession of strokes varied, in
different ways, for particular purposes, as to regulate a
march, to call soldiers to their arms or quarters, to
direct an attack, or retreat, etc.
Beat of a watch, or clock, the stroke or sound made by
the action of the escapement. A clock is in beat or out of
beat, according as the strokes is at equal or unequal
intervals.
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.
22.
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 wisbed 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.
Beat \Beat\, a.
Weary; tired; fatigued; exhausted. [Colloq.]
Quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed.
--Dickens.
Source: V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms December 2001
BEAT
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