verb, beat, beat⋅en or beat, beat⋅ing, noun, adjective | 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. |
| 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 fol. 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. |
| 21. | to strike repeated blows; pound. |
| 22. | to throb or pulsate: His heart began to beat faster. |
| 23. | to dash; strike (usually fol. 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? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 36. | Music.
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| 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.
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| 41. | a subdivision of a county, as in Mississippi. |
| 42. | (often initial capital letter ) Informal. beatnik. |
| 43. | Informal. exhausted; worn out. |
| 44. | (often initial capital letter ) of or characteristic of members of the Beat Generation or beatniks. |
| 45. | beat about,
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| 46. | beat back, to force back; compel to withdraw: to beat back an attacker. |
| 47. | beat down,
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| 48. | beat off,
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| 49. | beat out,
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| 50. | beat up,
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| 51. | beat all, Informal. to surpass anything of a similar nature, esp. 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 or about the bush. bush 1 (def. 17). |
| 54. | beat it, Informal. to depart; go away: He was pestering me, so I told him to beat it. |
| 55. | beat the air or wind, to make repeated futile attempts. |
| 56. | beat the rap. rap 1 (def. 16). |
| 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. |

verb, rapped, rap⋅ping, noun | 1. | to strike, esp. with a quick, smart, or light blow: He rapped the door with his cane. |
| 2. | to utter sharply or vigorously: to rap out a command. |
| 3. | (of a spirit summoned by a medium) to communicate (a message) by raps (often fol. by out). |
| 4. | Slang. to criticize sharply: Critics could hardly wait to rap the play. |
| 5. | Slang. to arrest, detain, or sentence for a crime. |
| 6. | Metallurgy. to jar (a pattern) loose from a sand mold. |
| 7. | to knock smartly or lightly, esp. so as to make a noise: to rap on a door. |
| 8. | Slang. to talk or discuss, esp. freely, openly, or volubly; chat. |
| 9. | Slang. to talk rhythmically to the beat of rap music. |
| 10. | a quick, smart, or light blow: a rap on the knuckles with a ruler. |
| 11. | the sound produced by such a blow: They heard a loud rap at the door. |
| 12. | Slang. blame or punishment, esp. for a crime. |
| 13. | Slang. a criminal charge: a murder rap. |
| 14. | Slang. response, reception, or judgment: The product has been getting a very bad rap. |
| 15. | Slang.
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| 16. | rap music. |
| 17. | beat the rap, Slang. to succeed in evading the penalty for a crime; be acquitted: The defendant calmly insisted that he would beat the rap. |
| 18. | take the rap, Slang. to take the blame and punishment for a crime committed by another: He took the rap for the burglary. |

A form of pop music characterized by spoken or chanted rhymed lyrics, with a syncopated, repetitive accompaniment. Rap music originated in the second half of the twentieth century in black urban communities. (See also hip-hop.)
beat (so's)
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beat the rap
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rap
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beat (bēt)
v. beat, beat·en (bēt'n), beat·ing, beats
To strike repeatedly.
To pulsate; throb.
beat the rap
Escape punishment; win acquittal. For example, The youngsters were caught shoplifting, but somehow they were able to beat the rap. The rap in this idiom means "the legal charge against one." [Slang; 1920s]