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beat Saltos de línea: beat

Definición de beat en inglés:

verbo (past beat; past participle beatenˈbiːt(ə)n)

[with object]
1Strike (a person or an animal) repeatedly and violently so as to hurt or injure them, typically with an implement such as a club or whip: aristocratic women were often beaten by their husbands the victims were beaten to death with baseball bats
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hit, strike, batter, thump, hammer, punch, knock, thrash, pound, pummel, slap, smack, crack, thwack, cuff, buffet, maul, pelt, drub, rain blows on;
assault, attack, abuse;
flay, whip, lash, cudgel, club, birch
informal wallop, belt, bash, whack, clout, clobber, slug, tan, biff, bop, sock, deck, plug, lay into, do over, knock about/around, rough up, fill in, knock into the middle of next week, beat the living daylights out of, give someone a good hiding
dated chastise
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bang, hit, strike, rap, tap, pound, thump, hammer;
play, sound, perform on, make music on
1.2 [no object] (Of an instrument) make a rhythmical sound through being struck: drums were beating in the distance
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1.3Strike (a carpet, blanket, etc.) repeatedly in order to remove dust: upright cleaners have a motorized head which beats the carpet to loosen the dirt
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1.6 [no object] Strike repeatedly at or on something: Sidney beat on the door with the flat of his hand Emmie began to beat at the flames
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1.7Move across (an area of land) repeatedly striking at the ground cover in order to raise game birds for shooting: they hire boys to beat the Yorkshire moors for game birds
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2Defeat (someone) in a game or other competitive situation: she beat him easily at chess Juventus were beaten 2-1
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informal lick, thrash, whip, wipe the floor with, clobber
US informal own
2.1Overcome (a problem or disease): the battle to beat car crime he beat heroin addiction in 1992
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surpass, outdo, exceed, eclipse, transcend, top, trump, cap, better, outperform, outstrip, outshine, outclass, overshadow, put in the shade, be better than, improve on, go one better than
2.3 informal Be better than: you can’t beat the taste of fresh raspberries
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2.4 informal Baffle: it beats me how you manage to work in this heat
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3Succeed in getting somewhere ahead of (someone): the defender beat him to the ball
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3.1Take action to avoid (difficulty or inconvenience): they set off early to beat the traffic
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  • Her heart started beating hard, pounding against her ribcage.
5(Of a bird) move (the wings) up and down: doves wheel around the rooftops, beating their wings
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flap, flutter, move up and down, thresh, thrash, wave, shake, swing, agitate, quiver, tremble, vibrate, oscillate
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6Stir (cooking ingredients) vigorously to make a smooth or frothy mixture: beat the butter until light and fluffy beat the cream into the mixture
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whisk, mix, blend, whip, stir, fold
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8 [no object, with adverbial of direction] Sailing Sail into the wind, following a zigzag course with repeated tacking: we beat southwards all that first day
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rhythm, pulse, stress, metre, time, measure, cadence, accent, rhythmical flow/pattern
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1.3The sound made when something, especially a musical instrument, is struck: he heard a regular drum beat
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1.4A pulsation of the heart.
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2The movement of a bird’s wings: the beat of the swallow’s wings as they dive after midges
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3An area allocated to a police officer and patrolled on foot: his beat was in North London public clamour for more policemen on the beat
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3.1A spell of duty allocated to a police officer: his beat ended at 6 a.m.
3.2An area regularly frequented by someone: a few, new to their beat, looked at him with interest
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3.3 informal A person’s area of interest: his beat is construction, property, and hotels
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3.4A stretch of water fished by an angler: you don’t necessarily have to fish on the priciest beats to find good sport
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  • The beats of the Norwegian Flyfishers Club are fished on a rotational basis, giving each angler equal rights, and a maximum of four anglers per beat.
  • We fished a beat that had a small narrow island about a third of the way down.
  • Each beat fishes best at a different height of water.
4A brief pause or moment of hesitation: she waited for a beat of three seconds
[From the use of a stage direction referring to such a pause]
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  • Bailey pauses for a beat while the squadron groan.
5 informal short for beatnik.
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  • Perhaps he was a Beat born too early.


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1 [predicative] informal Completely exhausted: I’m beat—I need an hour or so to rest
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2 [attributive] Relating to the beat generation or its philosophy: beat poet Allen Ginsberg
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  • At the minute I'm mostly reading beat poets.


Old English bēatan, of Germanic origin.

  • An Old English word related to beetle in the sense ‘heavy mallet’. The beat generation was a group of unconventional artists and writers of the 1950s and early 1960s, who valued free self-expression and liked modern jazz. Here the beat probably originally meant ‘worn out, exhausted’ rather than referring to a musical rhythm. The first people to beat about the bush were the ‘beaters’ who tried to disturb game birds so that they would fly up to be shot at. Beaters beat bushes, but soldiers beat drums. This is the origin of the phrase to beat a hasty retreat. To ‘beat a retreat’ was to sound the drums in a way that signalled to soldiers that they should withdraw from the battle. The drumming also helped them to retreat in an orderly manner.


beat about the bush

Discuss a matter without coming to the point: he never beat about the bush when something was annoying him
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prevaricate, vacillate, evade/dodge the issue, be non-committal, hedge, hedge one's bets, quibble, parry questions, fudge the issue, mince one's words, stall, shilly-shally, hesitate;
British hum and haw
informal pussyfoot around, waffle, flannel, sit on the fence, duck the question

beat someone at their own game

see game1.

beat the bounds

historical Mark parish boundaries by walking round them and striking certain points with rods: a large procession, headed by the clergyman, would beat the bounds over a period of two days
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  • For anyone unable to do the St Richard's sponsored walk on May 15, on May 16 there will be a nine-mile walk to beat the bounds of the parish.
  • Many other parish councils organised beating the bounds events and there was already a leaflet outlining a suitable route around the parish.
  • The Gould and Dickens families organised an unofficial walk to ensure the continuity of the beating the bounds whose origins have been lost in the depths of time.

beat one's breast

see breast.

beat the bushes

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beat the clock

Perform a task quickly or within a fixed time limit: frozen mixed vegetables help you beat the clock with this soup
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beat the drum for

see drum1.

be beaten at the post

Be defeated at the last moment.
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  • The girls played superbly but were beaten at the post losing by one match overall to the Australian team.
  • Nearly everybody has a tale to tell how they got beaten at the post when buying real estate.
  • Though he was beaten at the post he managed to create a course record.

beat one's (or the) meat

vulgar slang (Of a man) masturbate.

beat the pants off

informal Prove to be vastly superior to: it’s an ugly lump of plastic, but it sure beats the pants off the UK model
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beat a path to someone's door

(Of a large number of people) hasten to make contact with someone regarded as interesting or inspiring: the students and their professors beat a path to his door
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beat a (hasty) retreat

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beat the system

Succeed in finding a means of getting round rules, regulations, or other means of control: it may be that we secretly admire those who try to beat the system
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beat time

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beat someone to it

Succeed in doing something or getting somewhere before someone else: you’d better get a move on or they’ll beat you to it
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if you can't beat them, join them

humorous If you are unable to outdo rivals in some endeavour, you might as well cooperate with them and thereby possibly gain an advantage.
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  • Steve took the view that if you can't beat them, join them.
  • You're saying if you can't beat them, join them.
  • But they have increasingly taken the view that if you can't beat them, join them, and begun offering similar, competitive services.

to beat all ——s

Infinitely better than all the things of the specified type: a PC screen saver to beat all screen savers
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to beat the band

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Verbos con partícula

beat someone back

Force (someone trying to do something) to retreat: I was beaten back by the flames
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beat down

(Of the sun) radiate intense heat and brightness: the sun beat down on them with fiery intensity
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  • The sun was beating down heating the cold morning air.
2.1(Of rain) fall hard and continuously: the rain continued to beat down on him
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beat something down

Quell defence or resistance: the senator had beaten down my last defence
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3.1Fight to suppress a feeling or emotion: she beat down a gush of self-pity
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  • He fought with an emotion inside himself until it had been beaten down, then he smiled slightly.
  • If one has pride, Franklin advises him to ‘disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it .’
  • A feeling of guilt washed over her, but she beat it down and refused to accept it.

beat someone down

Force someone to reduce the price of something: I had at least attempted to beat him down on the charter price
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beat off

vulgar slang (Of a man) masturbate.

beat someone/thing off

Succeed in resisting an attacker or an attack: we beat off the raiders with sticks and broom handles
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repel, fight off, repulse, drive away/back, force back, beat back, push back, thrust back, put to flight;
6.1Win against a challenge or rival: the firm had beaten off competition from 260 other submissions
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  • Rogers beat off four rivals to land the job.

beat something out

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2Extinguish flames by striking at them with a suitable object: he made a frantic dash to grab an armful of branches and beat out the flames
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beat someone up

Assault and injure someone by hitting, kicking, or punching them repeatedly: they threatened to beat him up if he didn’t hand over the money
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(beat oneself up) informal 8.1 Reproach or criticize oneself excessively.
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informal knock about/around, do over, work over, clobber, rough up, fill in, kick in, jump, paste, lay into, lace into, sail into, pitch into, get stuck into, beat the living daylights out of, let someone have it
British informal have a go at, duff someone up
North American informal beat up on

beat up on someone

North American way of saying beat someone up.
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Oraciones de ejemplo

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Pronunciación: kwɑːˈfəː
a hairdresser