Verb

To hit; to knock; to pound; to strike.

As soon as she heard that Wiktionary was shutting down, she went into a rage and beat the wall with her fists until her knuckles bled.

* {{quote-news, date = 21 August 2012

, first = Ed , last = Pilkington , title = Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die? , newspaper = The Guardian , url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/21/death-penalty-trial-reggie-clemons?newsfeed=true , page = , passage = In this account of events, the cards were stacked against Clemons from the beginning. His appeal lawyers have argued that he was physically beaten into making a confession, the jury was wrongfully selected and misdirected, and his conviction largely achieved on individual testimony with no supporting forensic evidence presented.}}

To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm.

He danced hypnotically while she beat the atabaque.

To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.

* Bible, Judges xix. 22

The men of the city beat at the door.

* Dryden

Rolling tempests vainly beat below.

* Longfellow

They [winds] beat at the crazy casement.

* Bible, Jonath iv. 8

The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die.

* Francis Bacon

Public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon ministers.

To move with pulsation or throbbing.

* Byron

A thousand hearts beat happily.

To win against; to defeat or overcome; to do better than, outdo, or excel (someone) in a particular, competitive event.

Jan had little trouble beating John in tennis. He lost five games in a row.

No matter how quickly Joe finished his test, Roger always beat him.

I just can't seem to beat the last level of this video game.

(nautical) To sail to windward using a series of alternate tacks across the wind.

To strike (water, foliage etc.) in order to drive out game; to travel through (a forest etc.) for hunting.

* 1955 , (Robin Jenkins), The Cone-Gatherers , Canongate 2012, p. 81:

The part of the wood to be beaten for deer sloped all the way from the roadside to the loch.

To mix food in a rapid fashion. Compare whip.

Beat the eggs and whip the cream.

(transitive, UK, In haggling for a price) of a buyer, to persuade the seller to reduce a price

He wanted $50 for it, but I managed to beat him down to $35.

(nonstandard)

* 1825? , "Hannah Limbrick, Executed for Murder", in The Newgate Calendar: comprising interesting memoirs of the most notorious characters , page 231:

Thomas Limbrick, who was only nine years of age, said he lived with his mother when Deborah was beat : that his mother throwed her down all along with her hands; and then against a wall

To indicate by beating or drumming.

to beat''' a retreat''; ''to '''beat to quarters

To tread, as a path.

* Blackmore

pass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way

To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble.

* John Locke

Why should any one beat his head about the Latin grammar who does not intend to be a critic?

To be in agitation or doubt.

* Shakespeare

to still my beating mind

To make a sound when struck.

The drums beat .

(military) To make a succession of strokes on a drum.

The drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.

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.

Verb

(en verb)

(transitive, Scotland, northern England) To beat or slap.

*1932 , (Lewis Grassic Gibbon), Sunset Song'', Polygon 2006 (''A Scots Quair ), p. 24:

*:But Mistress Munro would up and be at the door and in she'd yank Andy by the lug, and some said she'd take down his breeks and skelp him, but maybe that was a lie.

*2008 , (James Kelman), Kieron Smith, Boy , Penguin 2009, p. 67:

*:My stomach was just sore and I was rubbing it. But he just reached and skelped' me on the leg and I fell down and he waited for me to get up and he ' skelped me on the b*m.