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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Beating \Beat"ing\, noun
1. The act of striking or giving blows; punishment or chastisement by blows.
2. Pulsation; throbbing; as, the beating of the heart.
3. (Acoustics & Mus.) Pulsative sounds. See {Beat}, noun
4. (Naut.) The process of sailing against the wind by tacks in zigzag direction.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Beat \Beat\ (b[=e]t), verb (used with an object) [imp. {Beat}; p. p. {Beat}, {Beaten}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Beating}.] [OE. beaten, beten, AS. be['a]tan; akin to Icel. bauta, OHG. b[=o]zan. Cf. 1st {Butt}, {Button}.]
1. To strike repeatedly; to lay repeated blows upon; as, to beat one's breast; to beat iron so as to shape it; to beat grain, in order to force out the seeds; to beat eggs and sugar; to beat a drum.
Thou shalt beat some of it [spices] very small. --Ex. xxx. 36.
They did beat the gold into thin plates. --Ex. xxxix. 3.
2. To punish by blows; to thrash.
3. To scour or range over in hunting, accompanied with the noise made by striking bushes, etc., for the purpose of rousing game.
To beat the woods, and rouse the bounding prey. --Prior.
4. To dash against, or strike, as with water or wind.
A frozen continent . . . beat with perpetual storms. --Milton.
5. To tread, as a path.
Pass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way. --Blackmore.
6. To overcome in a battle, contest, strife, race, game, etc.; to vanquish, defeat, or conquer; to surpass or be superior to.
He beat them in a bloody battle. --Prescott.
For loveliness, it would be hard to beat that. --M. Arnold.
7. To cheat; to chouse; to swindle; to defraud; -- often with out. [Colloq.]
8. To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble.
Why should any one . . . beat his head about the Latin grammar who does not intend to be a critic? --Locke.
9. (Mil.) To give the signal for, by beat of drum; to sound by beat of drum; as, to beat an alarm, a charge, a parley, a retreat; to beat the general, the reveille, the tattoo. See {Alarm}, {Charge}, {Parley}, etc.
10. to baffle or stump; to defy the comprehension of (a person); as, it beats me why he would do that.
11. to evade, avoid, or escape (blame, taxes, punishment); as, to beat the rap (be acquitted); to beat the sales tax by buying out of state.
{To beat down}, to haggle with (any one) to secure a lower price; to force down. [Colloq.]
{To beat into}, to teach or instill, by repetition.
{To beat off}, to repel or drive back.
{To beat out}, to extend by hammering.
{To beat out of} a thing, to cause to relinquish it, or give it up. ''Nor can anything beat their posterity out of it to this day.'' --South.
{To beat the dust}. (Man.) (a) To take in too little ground with the fore legs, as a horse. (b) To perform curvets too precipitately or too low.
{To beat the hoof}, to walk; to go on foot.
{To beat the wing}, to flutter; to move with fluttering agitation.
{To beat time}, to measure or regulate time in music by the motion of the hand or foot.
{To beat up}, to attack suddenly; to alarm or disturb; as, to beat up an enemy's quarters.
Syn: To strike; pound; bang; buffet; maul; drub; thump; baste; thwack; thrash; pommel; cudgel; belabor; conquer; defeat; vanquish; overcome.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
beating
adjective: expanding and contracting rhythmically as to the beating of the heart; "felt the pulsating artery"; "oh my beating heart" [syn: {pulsating}, {pulsing}]
noun
1: the act of overcoming or outdoing [syn: {whipping}]
2: the act of inflicting corporal punishment with repeated blows [syn: {thrashing}, {licking}, {drubbing}, {lacing}, {trouncing}, {whacking}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
216 Moby Thesaurus words for "beating": Waterloo, abrasion, alternate, arrhythmia, atomization, attrition, bang, barrage, bash, bastinado, basting, bat, battery, beat, belt, belting, biff, blow, bonk, brecciation, buffeting, cadenced, cadent, caning, chop, circling, clicking, clip, clout, clubbing, clump, collapse, comminution, conquering, conquest, corporal punishment, cowhiding, crack, crash, crumbling, crushing, cudgeling, cut, cyclic, dance, dash, deathblow, debacle, defeasance, defeat, destruction, detrition, dig, dint, disintegration, downfall, drub, drubbing, drum, drum music, drumbeat, drumfire, drumming, epochal, even, every other, failure, fall, flagellation, flailing, flap, flicker, flit, flitter, flogging, flop, flutter, fluttering, fragmentation, fusillade, fustigation, granulation, granulization, grating, grinding, heartbeat, heartthrob, hiding, hit, horsewhipping, in numbers, in rhythm, intermittent, isochronal, jab, knock, lacing, lambasting, lashing, lathering, levigation, lick, licking, mashing, mastery, measured, metric, metronomic, oscillatory, overcoming, overthrow, overturn, palpitant, palpitation, paradiddle, patter, pelt, periodical, pistol-whipping, pitapat, pitter-patter, plunk, poke, pound, pounding, powdering, pulsatile, pulsating, pulsation, pulsative, pulsatory, pulse, pulsing, punch, quietus, quiver, rap, rat-a-tat, rat-tat, rat-tat-tat, rataplan, rattattoo, rawhiding, reciprocal, recurrent, recurring, rhythm, rhythmic, roll, rotary, rout, rub-a-dub, ruff, ruffle, ruin, scourging, seasonal, serial, shake, shellacking, shredding, slam, slog, slug, smack, smash, smashing, sock, spanking, spatter, spattering, splutter, spluttering, sputter, sputtering, staccato, steady, strapping, stripes, stroke, subdual, subduing, subjugation, swat, swing, swingeing, swipe, switching, tat-tat, tattoo, tempo, thrashing, throb, throbbing, thrum, thrumming, thump, thumping, thwack, ticking, tom-tom, trimming, trituration, trouncing, truncheoning, undoing, undulant, undulatory, vanquishment, wavelike, waver, whack, wheeling, whipping, whop, yerk
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