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to beat the band

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band

1  [band]
Use to beat the band in a Sentence
–noun
1. a company of persons or, sometimes, animals or things, joined, acting, or functioning together; aggregation; party; troop: a band of protesters.
2. Music.
a. a group of instrumentalists playing music of a specialized type: rock band; calypso band; mariachi band.
b. a musical group, usually employing brass, percussion, and often woodwind instruments, that plays esp. for marching or open-air performances.
c. big band.
d. dance band.
3. a division of a nomadic tribe; a group of individuals who move and camp together and subsist by hunting and gathering.
4. a group of persons living outside the law: a renegade band.
–verb (used with object)
5. to unite in a troop, company, or confederacy.
–verb (used without object)
6. to unite; confederate (often fol. by together): They banded together to oust the chairman.
—Idiom
7. to beat the band, Informal. energetically; abundantly: It rained all day to beat the band.
Origin:
1480–90; < MF bande < It banda; c. LL bandum < Gmc; akin to Goth bandwa standard, band 2 , band 3 , bend 1 , bond 1

Synonyms:
1. gang, group; body; set; society, association, assembly. See company.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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beat   (bēt)   
v.   beat, beat·en (bēt'n) or beat, beat·ing, beats

v.   tr.

    1. To strike repeatedly.

    2. To subject to repeated beatings or physical abuse; batter.

    3. To punish by hitting or whipping; flog.

    4. To strike against repeatedly and with force; pound: waves beating the shore.

    5. To flap, especially wings.

    6. To strike so as to produce music or a signal: beat a drum.

    7. Music To mark or count (time or rhythm), especially with the hands or with a baton.

    8. To shape or break by repeated blows; forge: beat the glowing metal into a dagger.

    9. To make by pounding or trampling: beat a path through the jungle.

    10. To defeat or subdue, as in a contest.

    11. To force to withdraw or retreat: beat back the enemy.

    12. To dislodge from a position: I beat him down to a lower price.

    13. To avoid or counter the effects of, often by thinking ahead; circumvent: beat the traffic.

    14. To arrive or finish before (another): We beat you home by five minutes.

    15. To deprive, as by craft or ability: He beat me out of 20 dollars with his latest scheme.

    1. To strike against repeatedly and with force; pound: waves beating the shore.

    2. To flap, especially wings.

    3. To strike so as to produce music or a signal: beat a drum.

    4. Music To mark or count (time or rhythm), especially with the hands or with a baton.

    5. To shape or break by repeated blows; forge: beat the glowing metal into a dagger.

    6. To make by pounding or trampling: beat a path through the jungle.

    7. To defeat or subdue, as in a contest.

    8. To force to withdraw or retreat: beat back the enemy.

    9. To dislodge from a position: I beat him down to a lower price.

    10. To avoid or counter the effects of, often by thinking ahead; circumvent: beat the traffic.

    11. To arrive or finish before (another): We beat you home by five minutes.

    12. To deprive, as by craft or ability: He beat me out of 20 dollars with his latest scheme.

    1. To shape or break by repeated blows; forge: beat the glowing metal into a dagger.

    2. To make by pounding or trampling: beat a path through the jungle.

    3. To defeat or subdue, as in a contest.

    4. To force to withdraw or retreat: beat back the enemy.

    5. To dislodge from a position: I beat him down to a lower price.

    6. To avoid or counter the effects of, often by thinking ahead; circumvent: beat the traffic.

    7. To arrive or finish before (another): We beat you home by five minutes.

    8. To deprive, as by craft or ability: He beat me out of 20 dollars with his latest scheme.

  4. To mix rapidly with a utensil: beat two eggs in a bowl.

    1. To defeat or subdue, as in a contest.

    2. To force to withdraw or retreat: beat back the enemy.

    3. To dislodge from a position: I beat him down to a lower price.

    4. To avoid or counter the effects of, often by thinking ahead; circumvent: beat the traffic.

    5. To arrive or finish before (another): We beat you home by five minutes.

    6. To deprive, as by craft or ability: He beat me out of 20 dollars with his latest scheme.

  6. Informal To be superior to or better than: Riding beats walking.

  7. Slang To perplex or baffle: It beats me; I don't know the answer.

  8. Informal

    1. To avoid or counter the effects of, often by thinking ahead; circumvent: beat the traffic.

    2. To arrive or finish before (another): We beat you home by five minutes.

    3. To deprive, as by craft or ability: He beat me out of 20 dollars with his latest scheme.

  9. Physics To cause a reference wave to combine with (a second wave) so that the frequency of the second wave can be studied through time variations in the amplitude of the combination.

v.   intr.

  1. To inflict repeated blows.

  2. To pulsate; throb.

    1. To emit sound when struck: The gong beat thunderously.

    2. To strike a drum.

  4. To flap repeatedly.

  5. To shine or glare intensely: The sun beat down on us all day.

  6. To fall in torrents: The rain beat on the roof.

  7. To hunt through woods or underbrush in search of game.

  8. Nautical To sail in the direction from which the wind blows.

n.  

  1. A stroke or blow, especially one that produces a sound or serves as a signal.

  2. A pulsation or throb.

  3. Physics A variation in amplitude that results from the superpositioning of two or more waves of different frequencies. When sound waves are combined, the variation is heard as a pulsation in the sound.

  4. Music

    1. A steady succession of units of rhythm.

    2. A gesture used by a conductor to indicate such a unit.

    3. The area regularly covered by a reporter, a police officer, or a sentry: television's culture beat.

    4. The reporting of a news item obtained ahead of one's competitors.

  5. A pattern of stress that produces the rhythm of verse.

  6. A variable unit of time measuring a pause taken by an actor, as for dramatic effect.

    1. The area regularly covered by a reporter, a police officer, or a sentry: television's culture beat.

    2. The reporting of a news item obtained ahead of one's competitors.

  8. often Beat A member of the Beat Generation.

adj.  

  1. Informal Worn-out; fatigued.

  2. often Beat Of or relating to the Beat Generation.

  3. To drive away.

  4. Vulgar Slang To masturbate.

Phrasal Verb(s):
beat off

  1. To drive away.

  2. Vulgar Slang To masturbate.

beat outBaseball To reach base safely on (a bunt or ground ball) when a putout is attempted.

Idiom(s):
beat allTo be impressive or amazing. Often used in negative conditional constructions: If that doesn't beat all!

Idiom(s):
beat a retreatTo make a hasty withdrawal.

Idiom(s):
beat around/about the bushTo fail to confront a subject directly.

Idiom(s):
beat it Slang To leave hurriedly.

Idiom(s):
beat the bushesTo make an exhaustive search.

Idiom(s):
beat the drum/drumsTo give enthusiastic public support or promotion: a politician who beats the drum for liberalism.

Idiom(s):
beat up on

  1. To attack physically.

  2. To criticize or scold harshly.


Idiom(s):
to beat the bandTo an extreme degree.

[Middle English beten, from Old English bēaten; see bhau- in Indo-European roots.]
Synonyms: These verbs mean to hit heavily and repeatedly with violent blows: was mugged and beaten; basted him with a stick; was battered in the boxing ring; rioting students belabored by police officers; buffeted him with her open palm; hammered the opponent with his fists; lambasted every challenger; troops pounded with mortar fire; pummeled the bully soundly; thrashed the thief for stealing the candy. See Also Synonyms at defeat.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary
to beat the band

  1. mod.
    very hard and very fast. : He's selling computers to beat the band since he started advertising.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

band  (2)
"an organized group," 1490, from M.Fr. bande, from O.Fr. bande, traceable to P.Gmc. root of band (1), probably via a band of cloth worn as a mark of identification by a group of soldiers or others (cf. Gothic bandwa "a sign"). The extension to "group of musicians" is c.1660, originally musicians attached to a regiment of the army. To beat the band (1897) is to make enough noise to drown it out, hence to exceed everything.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Medical Dictionary

Main Entry: band
Pronunciation: 'band
Function: noun
1 : a thin flat encircling strip especially for binding: as a : a strip ofcloth used to protect a newborn baby's navel called also bellyband b : a thin flat strip of metal that encircles a tooth bands>
2 : a strip separated by some characteristic color or texture or considered apart from what is adjacent: as a : a stripe, streak, or other elongated mark on an animal;especially : one transverse to the long axis of the body b : a line or streak of differentiated cells c : one of the alternating dark and lightsegments of skeletal muscle fibers d : BAND FORM e : a strip of abnormal tissue eithercongenital or acquired; especially : a strip of connective tissue that causes obstruction of the bowel
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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Medical Dictionary

band (bānd)
n.

  1. An appliance or a part of an apparatus that encircles or binds a part of the body.

  2. A cordlike tissue that connects or that holds bodily structures together.

  3. A chromatically, structurally, or functionally differentiated strip or stripe in or on an organism.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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Science Dictionary
band   (bānd)  Pronunciation Key 
A specific range of electromagnetic wavelengths or frequencies, as those used in radio broadcasting.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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Idioms & Phrases

to beat the band

Also, to beat all. To the greatest possible degree. For example, The baby was crying to beat the band, or The wind is blowing to beat the band, or John is dressed up to beat all. This idiom uses beat in the sense of "surpass." The first term may, according to one theory, allude to a desire to arrive before the musicians who led a parade, so as to see the entire event. Another theory holds that it means "make more noise than (and thereby beat) a loud band." [Colloquial; late 1800s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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