Verb

To put (something) down, to rest.

To attach or affix (something) to something else, or in or upon a certain place.

I have set my heart on running the marathon.

* Bible, Genesis iv. 15

The Lord set a mark upon Cain.

To put in a specified condition or state; to cause to be.

* Bible, Deuteronomy xxviii. 1

The Lord thy God will set thee on high.

* Bible, Matthew x. 35

I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother.

* Coleridge

Every incident sets him thinking.

(dated) To cause to stop or stick; to obstruct; to fasten to a spot.

to set a coach in the mud

To determine or settle.

To adjust.

To punch (a nail) into wood so that its head is below the surface.

To arrange with dishes and cutlery.

To introduce or describe.

*

An incident which happened about this time will set the characters of these two lads more fairly before the discerning reader than is in the power of the longest dissertation.

To locate (a play, etc.); to assign a backdrop to.

To compile, to make (a puzzle or challenge).

This crossword was set by Araucaria.

To prepare (a stage or film set).

To fit (someone) up in a situation.

To arrange (type).

To devise and assign (work) to.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Peter Wilby)

, volume=189, issue=6, page=30, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Finland spreads word on schools , passage=Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting .}}

(volleyball) To direct (the ball) to a teammate for an attack.

To solidify.

To render stiff or solid; especially, to convert into curd; to curdle.

to set milk for cheese

Of a heavenly body, to disappear below the horizon of a planet, etc, as the latter rotates.

(bridge) To defeat a contract.

To begin to move; to go forth.

* c. 1599 , (William Shakespeare),

The king is set from London, and the scene is now transported, gentles, to Southampton

(of fruit) To be fixed for growth; to strike root; to begin to germinate or form.

* 1906 , Canada. Dept. of Agriculture. Fruit Branch, Fruit crop report

In the Annapolis Valley, in spite of an irregular bloom, the fruit has set well and has, as yet, been little affected by scab.

(intransitive, Southern US, Midwestern US, dialects) To sit (be in a seated position).

* , chapter=7

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.}}

To hunt game with the aid of a setter.

(hunting, ambitransitive) Of a dog, to indicate the position of game.

The dog sets the bird.

Your dog sets well.

(obsolete) To apply oneself; to undertake earnestly; to set out.

* Hammond

If he sets industriously and sincerely to perform the commands of Christ, he can have no ground of doubting but it shall prove successful to him.

(ambitransitive) To fit music to words.

* Dryden

Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.

(Shakespeare)

(ambitransitive) To place plants or shoots in the ground; to plant.

to set pear trees in an orchard

* Old proverb

Sow dry, and set wet.

To become fixed or rigid; to be fastened.

(Francis Bacon)

To have a certain direction of motion; to flow; to move on; to tend.

The current sets''' to the north; the tide '''sets to the windward.

To place or fix in a setting.

to set a precious stone in a border of metal

to set glass in a sash

* Dryden

And him too rich a jewel to be set / In vulgar metal for a vulgar use.

To put in order in a particular manner; to prepare.

to set (that is, to hone) a razor

to set a saw

To extend and bring into position; to spread.

to set the sails of a ship

To give a pitch to, as a tune; to start by fixing the keynote.

to set a psalm

(Fielding)

To reduce from a dislocated or fractured state.

to set a broken bone

(masonry) To lower into place and fix solidly, as the blocks of cut stone in a structure.

(obsolete) To wager in gambling; to risk.

* Shakespeare

I have set my life upon a cast, / And I will stand the hazard of the die.

To adorn with something infixed or affixed; to stud; to variegate with objects placed here and there.

* Dryden

High on their heads, with jewels richly set , / Each lady wore a radiant coronet.

* Wordsworth

pastoral dales thin set with modern farms

(obsolete) To value; to rate; used with at .

* Shakespeare

Be you contented, wearing now the garland, / To have a son set your decrees at naught.

* Shakespeare

I do not set my life at a pin's fee.

To establish as a rule; to furnish; to prescribe; to assign.

to set''' a good example; to '''set lessons to be learned

(Scotland) To suit; to become.

It sets him ill.

Verb

To divide a class group in a subject according to ability

* 2008 , Patricia Murphy, ?Robert McCormick, Knowledge and Practice: Representations and Identities

*:In setted' classes, students are brought together because they are believed to be of similar 'ability'. Yet, '''setted lessons are often conducted as though students are not only similar, but ''identical —in terms of ability, preferred learning style and pace of working.

* 2002 , Jo Boaler, Experiencing School Mathematics: Traditional and Reform Approaches and Their Impact on Student Learning

*:At Amber Hill, setting was a high-profile concept, and the students were frequently reminded of the set to which they belonged.

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.