BEAT:
• (imp.) of Beat
• (p. p.) of Beat
• (v. t.) To strike repeatedly; to lay repeated blows upon; as, to beat one's breast; to beat iron so as to shape it; to beat grain, in order to force out the seeds; to beat eggs and sugar; to beat a drum.
• (v. t.) To punish by blows; to thrash.
• (v. t.) To scour or range over in hunting, accompanied with the noise made by striking bushes, etc., for the purpose of rousing game.
• (v. t.) To dash against, or strike, as with water or wind.
• (v. t.) To tread, as a path.
• (v. t.) To overcome in a battle, contest, strife, race, game, etc.; to vanquish or conquer; to surpass.
• (v. t.) To cheat; to chouse; to swindle; to defraud; -- often with out.
• (v. t.) To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble.
• (v. t.) To give the signal for, by beat of drum; to sound by beat of drum; as, to beat an alarm, a charge, a parley, a retreat; to beat the general, the reveille, the tattoo. See Alarm, Charge, Parley, etc.
• (v. i.) To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
• (v. i.) To move with pulsation or throbbing.
• (v. i.) To come or act with violence; to dash or fall with force; to strike anything, as, rain, wind, and waves do.
• (v. i.) To be in agitation or doubt.
• (v. i.) To make progress against the wind, by sailing in a zigzag line or traverse.
• (v. i.) To make a sound when struck; as, the drums beat.
• (v. i.) To make a succession of strokes on a drum; as, the drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.
• (v. i.) To sound with more or less rapid alternations of greater and less intensity, so as to produce a pulsating effect; -- said of instruments, tones, or vibrations, not perfectly in unison.
• (n.) A stroke; a blow.
• (n.) A recurring stroke; a throb; a pulsation; as, a beat of the heart; the beat of the pulse.
• (n.) The rise or fall of the hand or foot, marking the divisions of time; a division of the measure so marked. In the rhythm of music the beat is the unit.
• (n.) A transient grace note, struck immediately before the one it is intended to ornament.
• (n.) A sudden swelling or reenforcement of a sound, recurring at regular intervals, and produced by the interference of sound waves of slightly different periods of vibrations; applied also, by analogy, to other kinds of wave motions; the pulsation or throbbing produced by the vibrating together of two tones not quite in unison. See Beat, v. i., 8.
• (v. i.) A round or course which is frequently gone over; as, a watchman's beat.
• (v. i.) A place of habitual or frequent resort.
• (v. i.) A cheat or swindler of the lowest grade; -- often emphasized by dead; as, a dead beat.
• (a.) Weary; tired; fatigued; exhausted.