beat

noun · verb · adjective

Simple meaning

to hit something repeatedly, or a strong pulse

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

beet

US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈbit

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

A stroke; a blow.
music
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 pulsation or throb.
The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.
The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency
The route patrolled by a police officer or a guard.

verb

Hit repeatedly
transitive
To hit; to strike.
transitive
To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm.
intransitive
To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
Glare or strike with great intensity
“The sun was beating down on us.”
Strike (a part of one's own body) repeatedly, as in great emotion or in accompaniment to music

adjective

Relating to the Beat Generation.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: A2 · Elementary
Frequency: Common
Typical Use: Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm.

Used this way, beat is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: No strong connotation
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use beat

“Thugs beat him up when he walked down the street late at night.”verb
“Agassi beat Becker in the tennis championship.”verb

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

heart beat

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

thump
The sound of such a blow.
flap
The motion of anything broad and loose, or a sound or stroke made with it.
pound
A hard blow.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

beatsnounPlural form
A United States youth subculture of the 1950s.
beatingnounInflected form
The act of overcoming or outdoing.
beaternounInflected form
A worker who rouses wild game from under cover for a hunter.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

beat outverbCompound term
Come out better in a competition, race, or conflict.
beat generationnounCompound term
A United States youth subculture of the 1950s.
beating-reed instrumentnounCompound term
A musical instrument that sounds by means of a vibrating reed.
beat downverbCompound term
Persuade the seller to accept a lower price.
beat backverbCompound term
Cause to move back by force or influence.
beat around the bushverbCompound term
Be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: hit repeatedly

pulse

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.