beat /ˈbit/
  打,敲打聲,拍子(vt.)(vi.)打,打敗,搜索(a.)疲乏的,頹廢的
  beat /ˈbɪt/ 不及物動詞
  搏動
  beat
  拍; 跳動; 取字時間
  beat
  零拍
  beat
  拍
  Beat v. t. [imp. Beat; p. p. Beat, Beaten p. pr. & vb. n. Beating.]
  1. 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.
     Thou shalt beat some of it [spices] very small.   --Ex. xxx. 36.
     They did beat the gold into thin plates.   --Ex. xxxix. 3.
  2. To punish by blows; to thrash.
  3. To scour or range over in hunting, accompanied with the noise made by striking bushes, etc., for the purpose of rousing game.
     To beat the woods, and rouse the bounding prey.   --Prior.
  4. To dash against, or strike, as with water or wind.
     A frozen continent . . . beat with perpetual storms.   --Milton.
  5. To tread, as a path.
     Pass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way.   --Blackmore.
  6. To overcome in a battle, contest, strife, race, game, etc.; to vanquish, defeat, or conquer; to surpass or be superior to.
     He beat them in a bloody battle.   --Prescott.
     For loveliness, it would be hard to beat that.   --M. Arnold.
  7. To cheat; to chouse; to swindle; to defraud; -- often with out. [Colloq.]
  8. To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble.
     Why should any one . . . beat his head about the Latin grammar who does not intend to be a critic?   --Locke.
  9. Mil. 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.
  10. to baffle or stump; to defy the comprehension of (a person); as, it beats me why he would do that.
  11. to evade, avoid, or escape (blame, taxes, punishment); as, to beat the rap (be acquitted); to beat the sales tax by buying out of state.
  To beat down, to haggle with (any one) to secure a lower price; to force down. [Colloq.]
  To beat into, to teach or instill, by repetition.
  To beat off, to repel or drive back.
  To beat out, to extend by hammering.
  To beat out of a thing, to cause to relinquish it, or give it up.  “Nor can anything beat their posterity out of it to this day.” --South.
  To beat the dust. Man. (a) To take in too little ground with the fore legs, as a horse. (b) To perform curvets too precipitately or too low.
  To beat the hoof, to walk; to go on foot.
  To beat the wing, to flutter; to move with fluttering agitation.
  To beat time, to measure or regulate time in music by the motion of the hand or foot.
  To beat up, to attack suddenly; to alarm or disturb; as, to beat up an enemy's quarters.
  Syn: -- To strike; pound; bang; buffet; maul; drub; thump; baste; thwack; thrash; pommel; cudgel; belabor; conquer; defeat; vanquish; overcome.
  Beat, v. i.
  1. To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
     The men of the city . . . beat at the door.   --Judges. xix. 22.
  2. To move with pulsation or throbbing.
     A thousand hearts beat happily.   --Byron.
  3. To come or act with violence; to dash or fall with force; to strike anything, as rain, wind, and waves do.
     Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below.   --Dryden.
     They [winds] beat at the crazy casement.   --Longfellow.
     The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die.   --Jonah iv. 8.
     Public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon ministers.   --Bacon.
  4. To be in agitation or doubt. [Poetic]
     To still my beating mind.   --Shak.
  5. Naut. To make progress against the wind, by sailing in a zigzag line or traverse.
  6. To make a sound when struck; as, the drums beat.
  7. Mil. To make a succession of strokes on a drum; as, the drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.
  8. Acoustics & Mus. 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.
  A beating wind Naut., a wind which necessitates tacking in order to make progress.
  To beat about, to try to find; to search by various means or ways. --Addison.
  To beat about the bush, to approach a subject circuitously.
  To beat up and down Hunting, to run first one way and then another; -- said of a stag.
  To beat up for recruits, to go diligently about in order to get helpers or participators in an enterprise.
  To beat the rap, to be acquitted of an accusation; -- especially, by some sly or deceptive means, rather than to be proven innocent.
  Beat n.
  1. A stroke; a blow.
  He, with a careless beat,
  Struck out the mute creation at a heat.   --Dryden.
  2. A recurring stroke; a throb; a pulsation; as, a beat of the heart; the beat of the pulse.
  3. Mus. (a) 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. (b) A transient grace note, struck immediately before the one it is intended to ornament.
  4. Acoustics & Mus. A sudden swelling or reënforcement 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.
  5. A round or course which is frequently gone over; as, a watchman's beat; analogously, for newspaper reporters, the subject or territory that they are assigned to cover; as, the Washington beat.
  6. A place of habitual or frequent resort.
  7. A cheat or swindler of the lowest grade; -- often emphasized by dead; as, a dead beat; also, deadbeat. [Low]
  Beat of drum Mil., a succession of strokes varied, in different ways, for particular purposes, as to regulate a march, to call soldiers to their arms or quarters, to direct an attack, or retreat, etc.
  Beat of a watch, or Beat of a clock, the stroke or sound made by the action of the escapement.  A clock is in beat or out of beat, according as the stroke is at equal or unequal intervals.
  Beat, a. Weary; tired; fatigued; exhausted. [Colloq.]
     Quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed.   --Dickens.
  Beat, n.
  1. One that beats, or surpasses, another or others; as, the beat of him. [Colloq.]
  2.  The act of one that beats a person or thing; as: (a) Newspaper Cant The act of obtaining and publishing a piece of news by a newspaper before its competitors; also, the news itself; -- also called a scoop or exclusive.
     It's a beat on the whole country.    --Scribner's Mag.
  (b) Hunting The act of scouring, or ranging over, a tract of land to rouse or drive out game; also, those so engaged, collectively. “Driven out in the course of a beat.”
     Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the last moment, when the beat is close to them.    --Encyc. of Sport.
  (c) Fencing A smart tap on the adversary's blade.
  ◄ ►
  beat
       adj : very tired; "was all in at the end of the day"; "so beat I
             could flop down and go to sleep anywhere"; "bushed
             after all that exercise"; "I'm dead after that long
             trip" [syn: all in(p), beat(p), bushed(p), dead(p)]
       n 1: a regular route for a sentry or policeman; "in the old days
            a policeman walked a beat and knew all his people by
            name" [syn: round]
       2: the rhythmic contraction and expansion of the arteries with
          each beat of the heart; "he could feel the beat of her
          heart" [syn: pulse, pulsation, heartbeat]
       3: the basic rhythmic unit in a piece of music; "the piece has
          a fast rhythm"; "the conductor set the beat" [syn: rhythm,
           musical rhythm]
       4: a single pulsation of an oscillation produced by adding two
          waves of different frequencies; has a frequency equal to
          the difference between the two oscillations
       5: a member of the beat generation; a nonconformist in dress
          and behavior [syn: beatnik]
       6: the sound of stroke or blow; "he heard the beat of a drum"
       7: (prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verse [syn: meter,
           metre, measure, cadence]
       8: a regular rate of repetition; "the cox raised the beat"
       9: a stroke or blow; "the signal was two beats on the steam
          pipe"
       10: the act of beating to windward; sailing as close as possible
           to the direction from which the wind is blowing
       v 1: come out better in a competition, race, or conflict; "Agassi
            beat Becker in the tennis championship"; "We beat the
            competition"; "Harvard defeated Yale in the last
            football game" [syn: beat out, crush, shell, trounce,
             vanquish]
       2: give a beating to; subject to a beating, either as a
          punishment or as an act of aggression; "Thugs beat him up
          when he walked down the street late at night"; "The
          teacher used to beat the students" [syn: beat up, work
          over]
       3: hit repeatedly; "beat on the door"; "beat the table with his
          shoe"
       4: move rhythmically; "Her heart was beating fast" [syn: pound,
           thump]
       5: shape by beating; "beat swords into ploughshares"
       6: make a rhythmic sound; "Rain drummed against the
          windshield"; "The drums beat all night" [syn: drum, thrum]
       7: glare or strike with great intensity; "The sun was beating
          down on us"
       8: move with a thrashing motion; "The bird flapped its wings";
          "The eagle beat its wings and soared high into the sky"
          [syn: flap]
       9: sail with much tacking or with difficulty; "The boat beat in
          the strong wind"
       10: stir vigorously; "beat the egg whites"; "beat the cream"
           [syn: scramble]
       11: strike (a part of one's own body) repeatedly, as in great
           emotion or in accompaniment to music; "beat one's
           breast"; "beat one's foot rhythmically"
       12: be superior; "Reading beats watching television"; "This sure
           beats work!"
       13: avoid paying; "beat the subway fare" [syn: bunk]
       14: make a sound like a clock or a timer; "the clocks were
           ticking"; "the grandfather clock beat midnight" [syn: tick,
            ticktock, ticktack]
       15: move with a flapping motion; "The bird's wings were
           flapping" [syn: flap]
       16: indicate by beating, as with the fingers or drumsticks;
           "Beat the rhythm"
       17: move with or as if with a regular alternating motion; "the
           city pulsated with music and excitement" [syn: pulsate,
            quiver]
       18: make by pounding or trampling; "beat a path through the
           forest"
       19: produce a rhythm by striking repeatedly; "beat the drum"
       20: strike (water or bushes) repeatedly to rouse animals for
           hunting
       21: beat through cleverness and wit; "I beat the traffic"; "She
           outfoxed her competitors" [syn: outwit, overreach, outsmart,
            outfox, circumvent]
       22: be a mystery or bewildering to; "This beats me!"; "Got me--I
           don't know the answer!"; "a vexing problem"; "This
           question really stuck me" [syn: perplex, vex, stick,
            get, puzzle, mystify, baffle, pose, bewilder,
            flummox, stupefy, nonplus, gravel, amaze, dumbfound]
       23: wear out completely; "This kind of work exhausts me"; "I'm
           beat"; "He was all washed up after the exam" [syn: exhaust,
            wash up, tucker, tucker out]
       [also: beaten]