Beat, v. i.
1. To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
The men of the city . . . beat at the door. --Judges. xix. 22.
2. To move with pulsation or throbbing.
A thousand hearts beat happily. --Byron.
3. To come or act with violence; to dash or fall with force; to strike anything, as rain, wind, and waves do.
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below. --Dryden.
They [winds] beat at the crazy casement. --Longfellow.
The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die. --Jonah iv. 8.
Public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon ministers. --Bacon.
4. To be in agitation or doubt. [Poetic]
To still my beating mind. --Shak.
5. Naut. To make progress against the wind, by sailing in a zigzag line or traverse.
6. To make a sound when struck; as, the drums beat.
7. Mil. To make a succession of strokes on a drum; as, the drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.
8. Acoustics & Mus. 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.
A beating wind Naut., a wind which necessitates tacking in order to make progress.
To beat about, to try to find; to search by various means or ways. --Addison.
To beat about the bush, to approach a subject circuitously.
To beat up and down Hunting, to run first one way and then another; -- said of a stag.
To beat up for recruits, to go diligently about in order to get helpers or participators in an enterprise.
To beat the rap, to be acquitted of an accusation; -- especially, by some sly or deceptive means, rather than to be proven innocent.