beat
A stroke; a blow.
Noun 4 meanings
A stroke; a blow.
A pulsation or throb.
“a beat of the heart”
A pulse on the beat level, the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic unit. Thus a beat is the basic time unit of a piece.
A rhythm.
“I love watching her dance to a pretty drum beat with a bouncy rhythm!”
Verb 4 meanings
To hit; to strike.
“As soon as she heard that her father had died, she went into a rage and beat the wall with her fists until her knuckles bled.”
To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm.
“He danced hypnotically while she beat the atabaque.”
To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
To move with pulsation or throbbing.
Adjective 2 meanings
Having impressively attractive makeup.
“Her face was beat for the gods!”
Relating to the Beat Generation.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English beten, from Old English bēatan (“to beat, pound, strike, lash, dash, thrust, hurt, injure”), from Proto-West Germanic *bautan, from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to push, strike”).
Similar and opposite words
BEAT at a glance
BEAT has 4 letters and scores 6 points in Scrabble (B 3 + E 1 + A 1 + T 1) and 7 in Words With Friends, before board bonuses. It ranks #1,003 by how often it appears in everyday English. It is valid in ENABLE, NWL2023, Collins/SOWPODS.
Rhymes with beat
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