beat off

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Related to beat off: beat out

beat

(bēt)

v. beat, beat·en (bēt′n) or beat, beat·ing, beats

v.tr.

a. To strike repeatedly.

b. To subject to repeated beatings or physical abuse; batter.

c. To punish by hitting or whipping; flog.

a. To strike against repeatedly and with force; pound: waves beating the shore.

b. To flap (wings, for example).

c. To strike so as to produce music or a signal: beat a drum.

d. Music To mark or count (time or rhythm), especially with the hands or with a baton.

a. To shape or break by repeated blows; forge: beat the glowing metal into a dagger.

b. To make by pounding or trampling: beat a path through the jungle.

4. To mix rapidly with a utensil: beat two eggs in a bowl.

a. To defeat or subdue, as in a contest. See Synonyms at defeat.

b. To force to withdraw or retreat: beat back the enemy.

c. To dislodge from a position: I beat him down to a lower price.

6. Informal To be superior to or better than: Riding beats walking.

7. Slang To perplex or baffle: It beats me; I don't know the answer.

8. Informal

a. To avoid or counter the effects of, often by thinking ahead; circumvent: beat the traffic.

b. To arrive or finish before (another): We beat you home by five minutes.

c. To deprive, as by craft or ability: He beat me out of 20 dollars with his latest scheme.

9. Physics To cause a reference wave to combine with (a second wave) so that the frequency of the second wave can be studied through time variations in the amplitude of the combination.

v.intr.

1. To inflict repeated blows.

2. To pulsate; throb.

a. To emit sound when struck: The gong beat thunderously.

b. To strike a drum.

4. To flap repeatedly.

5. To shine or glare intensely: The sun beat down on us all day.

6. To fall in torrents: The rain beat on the roof.

7. To hunt through woods or underbrush in search of game.

8. Nautical To sail upwind by tacking repeatedly.

1. A stroke or blow, especially one that produces a sound or serves as a signal.

2. A pulsation or throb.

3. Physics A variation in the amplitude of a wave, especially that which results from the superpositioning of two or more waves of different frequencies. When sound waves are combined, the beat is heard as a pulsation in the sound.

4. Music

a. A steady succession of units of rhythm.

b. A gesture used by a conductor to indicate such a unit.

5. A pattern of stress that produces the rhythm of verse.

6. A variable unit of time measuring a pause taken by an actor, as for dramatic effect.

a. The area regularly covered by a reporter, a police officer, or a sentry: television's culture beat.

b. The reporting of a news item obtained ahead of one's competitors.

8. often Beat A member of the Beat Generation.

adj.

1. Informal Worn-out; fatigued.

2. often Beat Of or relating to the Beat Generation.

Phrasal Verbs:

beat off

1. To drive away.

2. Vulgar Slang To masturbate.

beat out

Baseball To reach base safely on (a bunt or ground ball) when a putout is attempted.

Idioms:

beat all

To be impressive or amazing. Often used in negative conditional constructions: If that doesn't beat all!

beat a retreat

To make a hasty withdrawal.

beat around/about the bush

To fail to confront a subject directly.

beat it Slang

To leave hurriedly.

beat the bushes

To make an exhaustive search.

beat the drum/drums

To give enthusiastic public support or promotion: a politician who beats the drum for liberalism.

beat up on

1. To attack physically.

2. To criticize or scold harshly.

to beat the band

To an extreme degree.

[Middle English beten, from Old English bēaten; see bhau- in Indo-European roots.]

Synonyms: beat, batter¹, buffet², hammer, pound², pummel, thrash
These verbs mean to hit heavily and repeatedly with violent blows: beat each other with sticks; a ship battered by storm waves; buffeted him with her open palm; hammered his opponent with his fists; troops pounded by mortar fire; pummeled the bully soundly; dolphins thrashing the water with their tails. See Also Synonyms at defeat.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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beat

verb

1. To hit heavily and repeatedly with violent blows:

assail, assault, baste, batter, belabor, buffet, drub, hammer, pound, pummel, smash, thrash, thresh.

Informal: lambaste.

Slang: clobber.

Idiom: rain blows on.

2. To punish with blows or lashes:

flog, hide, lash, thrash, whip.

Informal: trim.

Slang: lay into, lick.

3. To move (one's arms or wings, for example) up and down:

flap, flitter, flop, flutter, waggle, wave.

4. To indicate (time or rhythm), as with repeated gestures or sounds:

count.

Idioms: keep time , mark time.

5. To make rhythmic contractions, sounds, or movements:

palpitate, pound, pulsate, pulse, throb.

6. To shape, break, or flatten with repeated blows:

forge, hammer, pound.

7. To mix rapidly to a frothy consistency:

whip, whisk.

8. To win a victory over, as in battle or a competition:

best, conquer, defeat, master, overcome, prevail against (or over), rout, subdue, subjugate, surmount, triumph over, vanquish, worst.

Informal: trim, whip.

Slang: ace, lick.

Idioms: carry the day, get the best of, get the better of, go someone one better.

9. Informal. To be greater or better than:

best, better, exceed, excel, outdo, outmatch, outrun, outshine, outstrip, pass, surpass, top, transcend.

Idioms: go beyond, go one better.

10. Slang. To make incapable of finding something to think, do, or say:

confound, nonplus.

Informal: flummox, stick, stump, throw.

Idiom: put someone at a loss.

phrasal verb
beat down

To be projected with blinding intensity:

blaze, glare.

phrasal verb
beat off

To turn or drive away:

fend (off), keep off, parry, repel, repulse, ward off.

noun

1. A stroke or blow, especially one that produces a sound:

clunk, pound, thud, thump.

2. A periodic contraction or sound of something coursing:

palpitation, pulsation, pulse, throb.

3. The patterned, recurring alternation of contrasting elements, such as stressed and unstressed notes in music:

cadence, cadency, measure, meter, rhythm, swing.

4. An area regularly covered, as by a policeman or reporter:

circuit, round, route.

adjective

Informal. Extremely tired:

bleary, dead, drained, exhausted, fatigued, rundown, spent, tired out, wearied, weariful, weary, worn-down, worn-out.

Informal: bushed, tuckered (out).

Slang: done in, fagged (out), pooped (out).

Idioms: all in, ready to drop.

Translations

يَصُدُّ هُجوما

odrazitzahnat

drive væk

abwehren

repousser

berja af sér, verjast

drive vekk

önlemek püskürtmek

打退

w>beat off

vt sep → abwehren

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

beat

(biːt) – past tense beat: past participle ˈbeaten – verb

1. to strike or hit repeatedly. Beat the drum.

2. to win against. She beat me in a contest.

3. to mix thoroughly. to beat an egg.

4. to move in a regular rhythm. My heart is beating faster than usual.

5. to mark or indicate (musical time) with a baton etc. A conductor beats time for an orchestra.

noun

1. a regular stroke or its sound. I like the beat of that song.

2. a regular or usual course. a policeman's beat.

ˈbeater noun

ˈbeating noun

ˈbeaten adjective

1. overcome; defeated. the beaten team; He looked tired and beaten.

2. mixed thoroughly. beaten egg.

beat about the bush

to approach a subject in an indirect way, without coming to the point or making any decision.

beat down

1. (of the sun) to give out great heat. The sun's rays beat down on us.

2. to (force to) lower a price by bargaining. We beat the price down; We beat him down to a good price.

beat it

to go away. Beat it, or I'll hit you!; She told her little brother to beat it.

beat off

to succeed in overcoming or preventing. The old man beat off the youths who attacked him; He beat the attack off easily.

beat a (hasty) retreat

to go away in a hurry. The children beat a hasty retreat when he appeared.

beat up

to punch, kick or hit (a person) severely and repeatedly. He beat up an old lady.

off the beaten track

away from main roads, centres of population etc.

Mentioned in ?

References in classic literature ?

Others of the Jackdaws rushed at the Saw-Horse; but that animal, being still upon his back, kicked out so viciously with his wooden legs that he beat off as many assailants as did the Woodman's axe.

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Our only hope, he said, lay in reaching his tribe which was quite strong enough in their mountain fastness to beat off any number of Sagoths.

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He did not have much faith in their ability to beat off a hungry man-eater, though he did believe, implicitly, that their lives would go bravely before hers in case of an attack.

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Frantically he fought to beat off the lad that he might turn upon the fearsome thing at his back.

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Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast.

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Hither and thither about the campong the battle raged until the fighting mass rolled against the palisade, and here, at last, with his back to the structure, Number Thirteen regained his feet, and with the heavy stock of the bull whip beat off, for a moment, those nearest him.

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The man who seized her kept the lions from her with what appeared to be a stout spear, the haft of which he used to beat off the beasts.

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His shrieks had brought both his father and herself flying to the hog barn to find him dancing up and down as, frightened and aghast, he vainly attempted to beat off old Dorcas, a mammoth sow, from one of her day-old litter on which, having crushed it by accident, she was now quite deliberately feasting.

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But--as a man who had been matchless held In cunning, over-reached where least he thought, To salve his credit, and for very spite, Still will be tempting him who foils him still, And never cease, though to his shame the more; Or as a swarm of flies in vintage-time, About the wine-press where sweet must is poured, Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound; Or surging waves against a solid rock, Though all to shivers dashed, the assault renew, (Vain battery!) and in froth or bubbles end-- So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse Met ever, and to shameful silence brought, Yet gives not o'er, though desperate of success, And his vain importunity pursues.

View in context

"Well, go I will;--but if I do go, captain, I shall take my knowledge with me; and then you may live a widower bewitched till the tattoo of life is beat off."

View in context

All's wool that ends wool for Scotsman John Kirkpatrick after he beat off competition from 25 countries to win sheep shearing's highest accolade - the Golden Shears.

John Kirkpatrick wins Golden Shears in New Zealand

Kimberley, 20, beat off competition from more than 80 other young applicants to land the role of apprentice animal keeper at the Kirkley Hall Zoo near Ponteland.