Related Searches
Nearby Words
Synonyms
Synonym Game
pressure
overcome
overtake
vanquish
cadence
collide
conquer
PLAY

beat off

 [beet]   Origin

beat

   [beet] verb, beat, beat·en or beat, beat·ing, noun, adjective
verb (used with object)
1.
to strike violently or forcefully and repeatedly.
2.
to dash against: rain beating the trees.
3.
to flutter, flap, or rotate in or against: beating the air with its wings.
4.
to sound, as on a drum: beating a steady rhythm; to beat a tattoo.
5.
to stir vigorously: Beat the egg whites well.
EXPAND
6.
to break, forge, or make by blows: to beat their swords into plowshares.
7.
to produce (an attitude, idea, habit, etc.) by repeated efforts: I'll beat some sense into him.
8.
to make (a path) by repeated treading.
9.
to strike (a person or animal) repeatedly and injuriously: Some of the hoodlums beat their victims viciously before robbing them.
10.
Music. to mark (time) by strokes, as with the hand or a metronome.
11.
Hunting. to scour (the forest, grass, or brush), and sometimes make noise, in order to rouse game.
12.
to overcome in a contest; defeat.
13.
to win over in a race: We beat the English challenger to Bermuda.
14.
to be superior to: Making reservations beats waiting in line.
15.
to be incomprehensible to; baffle: It beats me how he got the job.
16.
to defeat or frustrate (a person), as a problem to be solved: It beats me how to get her to understand.
17.
to mitigate or offset the effects of: beating the hot weather; trying to beat the sudden decrease in land values.
18.
Slang. to swindle; cheat (often followed by out): He beat him out of hundreds of dollars on that deal.
19.
to escape or avoid (blame or punishment).
20.
Textiles. to strike (the loose pick) into its proper place in the woven cloth by beating the loosely deposited filling yarn with the reed.
COLLAPSE
verb (used without object)
21.
to strike repeated blows; pound.
22.
to throb or pulsate: His heart began to beat faster.
23.
to dash; strike (usually followed by against or on): rain beating against the windows.
24.
to resound under blows, as a drum.
25.
to achieve victory in a contest; win: Which team do you think will beat?
EXPAND
26.
to play, as on a drum.
27.
to scour cover for game.
28.
Physics. to make a beat or beats.
29.
(of a cooking ingredient) to foam or stiffen as a result of beating or whipping: This cream won't beat.
30.
Nautical. to tack to windward by sailing close-hauled.
COLLAPSE

00:10

00:09

00:08

00:07

00:06

00:05

00:04

00:03

00:02

00:01

Beat off is always a great word to know.
So is bezoar. Does it mean:
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...
noun
31.
a stroke or blow.
32.
the sound made by one or more such blows: the beat of drums.
33.
a throb or pulsation: a pulse of 60 beats per minute.
34.
the ticking sound made by a clock or watch escapement.
35.
one's assigned or regular path or habitual round: a policeman's beat.
EXPAND
36.
Music.
a.
the audible, visual, or mental marking of the metrical divisions of music.
b.
a stroke of the hand, baton, etc., marking the time division or an accent for music during performance.
37.
Theater. a momentary time unit imagined by an actor in timing actions: Wait four beats and then pick up the phone.
38.
Prosody. the accent stress, or ictus, in a foot or rhythmical unit of poetry.
39.
Physics. a pulsation caused by the coincidence of the amplitudes of two oscillations of unequal frequencies, having a frequency equal to the difference between the frequencies of the two oscillations.
40.
Journalism.
a.
the reporting of a piece of news in advance, especially before it is reported by a rival or rivals. Compare exclusive (def. 13), scoop (def. 9).
b.
Also called newsbeat, run. the particular news source or activity that a reporter is responsible for covering.
41.
a subdivision of a county, as in Mississippi.
42.
(often initial capital letter) Informal. beatnik.
COLLAPSE
adjective
43.
Informal. exhausted; worn out.
44.
(often initial capital letter) of or characteristic of members of the Beat Generation or beatniks.
Verb phrases
45.
beat about,
a.
to search through; scour: After beating about for several hours, he turned up the missing papers.
b.
Nautical. to tack into the wind.
46.
beat back, to force back; compel to withdraw: to beat back an attacker.
47.
beat down,
a.
to bring into subjection; subdue.
b.
Informal. to persuade (a seller) to lower the price of something: His first price was too high, so we tried to beat him down.
48.
beat off,
a.
to ward off; repulse: We had to beat off clouds of mosquitoes.
b.
Slang: Vulgar. to masturbate.
49.
beat out,
a.
Informal. to defeat; win or be chosen over: to beat out the competition.
b.
Carpentry. to cut (a mortise).
c.
to produce hurriedly, especially by writing or typing: There are three days left to beat out the first draft of the novel.
d.
Baseball. (of a hitter) to make (an infield ground ball or bunt) into a hit: He beat out a weak grounder to third.
EXPAND
50.
beat up,
a.
Also, beat up on. to strike repeatedly so as to cause painful injury; thrash: A gang of toughs beat him up on the way home from school. In the third round the champion really began to beat up on the challenger.
b.
British Informal. to find or gather; scare up: I'll beat up some lunch for us while you make out the shopping list.
COLLAPSE
Idioms
51.
beat all, Informal. to surpass anything of a similar nature, especially in an astonishing or outrageous way: The way he came in here and ordered us around beats all!
52.
beat a retreat. retreat (def. 12).
53.
beat around/about the bush. bush1 (def. 16).
54.
beat it, Informal. to depart; go away: He was pestering me, so I told him to beat it.
55.
beat the air/wind, to make repeated futile attempts.
EXPAND
56.
beat the rap. rap1 (def. 17).
57.
off one's beat, outside of one's routine, general knowledge, or range of experience: He protested that nonobjective art was off his beat.
58.
on the beat, in the correct rhythm or tempo: By the end of the number they were all finally playing on the beat.
COLLAPSE
Origin:
before 900; Middle English beten, Old English bēatan; cognate with Old Norse bauta, Middle Low German bōten, Old High German bōzzan; akin to MIr búalaim I hit, Latin fūstis a stick < *bheud-

Related forms
beat·a·ble, adjective
o·ver·beat, verb, o·ver·beat, o·ver·beat·en or o·ver·beat, o·ver·beat·ing.
un·der·beat, noun

Can be confused: beat, beet (see synonym note at the current entry).

Synonyms
1. belabor, batter, drub, maul, baste, pommel, cudgel, buffet, flog. Beat, hit, pound, strike, thrash refer to the giving of a blow or blows. Beat implies the giving of repeated blows: to beat a rug. To hit is usually to give a single blow, definitely directed: to hit a ball. To pound is to give heavy and repeated blows, often with the fist: to pound a nail, the table. To strike is to give one or more forceful blows suddenly or swiftly: to strike a gong. To thrash implies inflicting repeated blows as punishment, to show superior strength, and the like: to thrash a child. 12. conquer, subdue, vanquish, overpower. 14. excel, outdo, surpass. 22. See pulsate.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source Link To beat off
Etymonline
Word Origin & History

beat
O.E. beatan "inflict blows on, thrash" (class VII strong verb; past tense beot, pp. beaten), from P.Gmc. *bautan (cf. O.N. bauta, O.H.G. bozan "to beat"), from PIE base *bhau- "to strike" (see batter (v.)). Of the heart, c.1200, from notion of it striking against the breast.
EXPAND
Meaning "to overcome in a contest" is from 1610s (the source of the sense of "legally avoid, escape" in beat the charges, etc., attested from c.1920 in underworld slang). Meaning "strike cover to rouse or drive game" (M.E.) is source of beat around the bush (1570s), the metaphoric sense of which has shifted from "make preliminary motions" to "avoid, evade." Command beat it "go away" first recorded 1906 (though "action of feet upon the ground" was a sense of O.E. betan). Dead-beat (originally "tired-out") preserves the old pp. To beat off "masturbate" is recorded by 1960s. For beat generation see beatnik.
COLLAPSE
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source
American Heritage
Medical Dictionary

beat (bēt)
v. beat, beat·en (bēt'n), beat·ing, beats

  1. To strike repeatedly.

  2. To pulsate; throb.

n.
A stroke, impulse, or pulsation, especially one that produces a sound as of the heart or pulse.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Cite This Source
American Heritage
Science Dictionary
beat   (bēt)  Pronunciation Key 
A fluctuation or pulsation, usually repeated, in the amplitude of a signal. Beats are generally produced by the superposition of two waves of different frequencies; if the signals are audible, this results in fluctuations between louder and quieter sound.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Slang Dictionary

beat off definition


and ball off; jack off; jag off; jerk off; pull (oneself)
  1. in.
    to masturbate. (Usually objectionable.) : They say if you beat off too much, you'll get pimples.
  2. in.
    to waste time; to waste one's efforts; to do something inefficiently. : The whole lot of them were jacking off rather than sticking to business. , Stop whanking off and get on with your work!
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source

beat (so's) definition


  1. tv.
    to beat someone severely. : She threatened to beat my brains out.
  2. tv.
    to drive oneself hard (to accomplish something). : I beat my brains out all day to clean this house, and you come in and track up the carpet!
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source
American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

beat off

Repulse, drive away by blows, as in We tried to beat off the flying ants swarming about us. Originating in the mid-1600s in a military context, this term was being used for other activities by the mid-1700s.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
Cite This Source
Partners:WordBloglinesCitysearchThe Daily BeastAsk AnswersAsk KidsLife123SendoriThesaurus
Dictionary.com, LLC. Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved.
About Privacy Policy Terms of Use API Careers Advertise with Us Contact Us Help
  • Please Login or Sign Up to use the Recent Searches feature
FAVORITES
RECENT