Beat

How to spell beat

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce beat

What does beat mean?

1. verbTo strike something repeatedly, or to defeat an opponent in a contest.
2. nounA regular rhythmic unit in music, marking the basic pulse of a piece.
3. nounThe regular route or area patrolled by a police officer.

Beat in a sentence

• verb

  The boxer trained for months hoping to beat the reigning champion.

• noun

  The drummer kept a steady beat throughout the entire song.

• noun

  The constable knew every shopkeeper on his beat by name.

• verb

  She had to beat the dusty rug against the wall to clean it.

• noun

  Dancers found it hard to follow the irregular beat of the new track.

• noun

  Officers walking the night beat reported the broken streetlight.

Where does beat come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from the Old English verb beatan, which simply meant to strike, pound, or thrash, and it has been part of the language since before written records of English began. It traces back through the Proto-Germanic root bautan, related to forms in Old Norse and Old High German that all carried the sense of hitting or knocking. From the early physical meaning of striking blows, the word spread naturally into related ideas: the regular striking of a drum gave us the musical beat, the throbbing of the body gave us the heartbeat, and the notion of striking down an opponent gave us the sense of defeating someone in a contest. The patrol sense, an officer's beat, comes from the idea of regularly treading or pounding a fixed route on foot. Because the word is so old and short, its spelling settled early, though it shares its sound exactly with the unrelated vegetable beet, which is the trap modern writers fall into.

How the word is built

• beat (from Old English beatan: to strike); a single root word with no prefix or suffix

Words that sound like beat

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• beet: A round root vegetable, often deep red, eaten cooked, pickled, or grown for sugar.