beat
/biːt/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.01 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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.
noun
A rhythm.
noun
A rhythm.
noun
The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.
noun
The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency.
Example Sentences
- "He, […]with a careless beat, / Struck out the mute creation at a heat."
- "a beat of the heart"
- "the beat of the pulse"
- "With each beat, your heart's left ventricle pumps blood into your arteries, which are all different sizes."
- "I love watching her dance to a pretty drum beat with a bouncy rhythm!"
- "to walk the beat"
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰew-der.? Proto-Germanic *bautaną Proto-West Germanic *bautan Old English bēatan Middle English beten English beat Inherited from Middle English beten, from Old English bēatan (“to beat, pound, strike, lash, dash, thrust, hurt, injure”), from Proto-West Germanic *bautan, from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to push, strike”). Cognates Cognate with Dutch boten, botten, butten (“to push, strike”), German boßen (“to thrash”), Gothic *𐌱𐌰𐌿𐍄𐌰𐌽 (*bautan, “to beat, strike”) (whence, probably, Galician and Portuguese botar (“to expel; to throw”)); also Latin fūstis (“club, cudgel, knobbed stick, staff”), *fūtō (“to strike”), Albanian bahe, hobe (“sling”), Armenian բութ (butʻ), բույթ (buytʻ, “thumb”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Law.
Inflected Forms
beats (plural)
beats (present, singular)
beating (participle, present)
beated (nonstandard, past)
beaten (participle, past)
beated (nonstandard, participle)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
beatest (archaic, present)
beatest (archaic, past)
beateth (archaic, present)
- (imperative, past)
Derived Forms
Phrases
back beat
bad beat
Balearic beat
barber beats
beat cop
beat for nothing
beat frequency oscillator
beat panel