Skip to content

beat

adjective

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L334774 on Wikidata ↗

noun

  1. unit of time in music
  2. effect in acoustics
  3. rhythmic pulsation
L3850 on Wikidata ↗

verb

  1. hit repeatedly
  2. defeat
  3. throb
  4. to remove dust
  5. (cause) pulsating motion that often makes sound
L3851 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /biːt/ / /bɛt/

adj

Etymology: From beatnik, or beat generation.

  1. Relating to the Beat Generation.

    beat poetry

noun

Etymology: From beatnik, or beat generation.

  1. A beatnik.

    The beats were pioneers with no destination, changing the world one impulse at a time.

verb

Etymology: From Middle English bet (simple past of beten "to beat"), from Old English bēot (simple past of bēatan "to beat"). Middle English bet would regularly yield *beet; the modern form is influenced by the present stem and the past participle beaten, perhaps by analogy with the Early Modern English paradigm eat:eat (“ate”):eaten. Pronunciations with /ɛ/ (from Middle English bette, alternative simple past of beten) are possibly analogous to read (/ɹɛd/), led, met, etc.

  1. simple past tense of beat
  2. past participle of beat