[f. BEAT v.]
1. A stroke or blow in beating.
c. 1615. Fletcher, Valent., II. iii. For thus we get but years and beets.
1687. Dryden, Hind & P., I. 253. The Smith Divine, as with a careless beat, Struck out the mute creation at a heat.
1805. Southey, Madoc in Azt., xxiii. Instrument of touch, Or beat, or breath.
2. Fencing. A particular blow struck upon the adversary’s sword or foil.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v., There are two kinds of beats; the first performed with the foible of a man’s sword on the foible of his adversary’s…. The second … is performed with the fort of a man’s sword on the foible of his adversary’s … with a jerk or dry beat.
1833. Regul. Instr. Cavalry, I. 153. The smarter the beat is given, the more effectual they will be as ‘Guards’ and ‘Parries.’
3. A stroke upon a drum, the striking of a drum with the sound produced; the signal given thereby; also in drum-beat. Sometimes fig.
1672. T. Venn, Mil. & Mar. Discipl., I. iv. 45. There are these several Beates [of the Drum] to be taken notice of as military signs.
1687. Dryden, St. Cecilia’s Day, iii. The double double double beat Of the thundering drum.
1791. Paine, Rights of Man, 44. By the beat of a drum a proclamation was made that the citizens of Versailles would give the hospitality of their houses to their fellow-citizens of Paris.
1816. C. James, Mil. Dict. (ed. 4), 178/2. The Church Call;… a beat to summon the soldiers of a regiment, or garrison, to church.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xvii. (1871), II. 284. Every man should be under arms without beat of drum.
c. 1850. Longf., My lost Youth. The drum-beat repeated o’er and o’er.
4. ‘The movement of the hand or baton, by which the rhythm of a piece of music is indicated, and by which a conductor ensures perfect agreement in tempo and accent on the part of the orchestra or chorus; also, by analogy, the different divisions of a bar or measure with respect to their relative accent.’ Grove, Dict. Mus. (1880).
5. Any measured sequence of strokes or blows, or the sound thereby produced; the march of measured sound or of verse.
1795. Southey, Vis. Maid Orleans, iii. 37. The regular beat Of evening death-watch.
a. 1822. Shelley, Cloud. The beat of her aëry feet, Which only the angels hear.
1848. Mrs. Gaskell, M. Barton, 66/2. The measured beat of the waters against the sides of the boat.
1851. Longf., Village Blacksm. You can hear him swing his heavy sledge With measured beat and slow.
1885. Contemp. Rev., April, 555. Though it scarcely can be said to indicate the beat of the iamb.
6. The rhythmical throbbing of the heart or pulses; sometimes in comb., as pulse-beat.
1755. Johnson, Dict., s.v., The beat of a pulse.
1836. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., I. 674/1. The flow from a vein is accelerated after each beat of the heart.
1877. O. W. Holmes, Fam. Record, Poems (1884), 319. In every pulse-beat of their loyal sons.
1877. M. Foster, Phys., I. iv. 97. Regarded as a pump its (i. e. the Heart’s) effects are determined by the frequency of the beats, by the force of each beat, by the character of each beat.
7. In a clock or watch: The stroke of a pallet of the pendulum or balance on a tooth of the scape wheel; the sound thus produced; also the regular succession of such strokes. Hence beat-pin.
1706. Phillips, Beats in a watch or clock.
1819. Rees, Cycl., s.v. Beat, The interval between two successive beats, in a clock or watch.
1828. Arnott, Physics, I. 90. In storm and in calm its [the chronometer’s] steady beat went on.
1883. Sir E. Beckett, Clocks, etc., 131. In very large clocks the pallet tails are too thick to bend for adjustment of the beat, and these eccentric beat pins are used.
1884. F. Britten, Watch & Clockm., 32. Beat Pins [are] small screws to adjust the position of the crutch with relation to the pendulum.
b. fig.
1865. J. H. Newman, Gerontius, ii. 14. How still it is! I hear no more the busy beat of time.
8. A throbbing or undulating effect taking place in rapid succession when two notes not quite of the same pitch are sounded together; the combined note alternates rapidly between the minimum of sound produced by the mutual interference of their vibrations, and the full effect produced by the coincidence of their vibrations.
a. 1733. North, Lives, I. 247. How it [the organ at Exeter] is tuned, whether by measure or the beats, we were not informed.
1819. Rees, Cycl., s.v. Beat, The beats of two dissonant organ pipes, resemble the beating of the pulse to the touch.
1834. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sc., X. vi. (1849), 154.
9. Music. ‘The name given in English to a melodic grace or ornament, but with considerable uncertainty as to which particular ornament it denotes, the word having been variously applied by different writers.’ Grove, Dict. Mus. (1880).
1803. Rees, Cycl., s.v., Beat in music is a grace.
10. The round or course habitually traversed by a watchman, sentinel, or constable on duty. [It is uncertain to which sense of BEAT v. this is to be referred: cf. prob. to 3, but cf. 26 b, 41.]
1825. Hood, Ode Graham, xxxvii. I hear the watchmen on their beats, Hawking the hour about the streets.
1840. Penny Cycl., XVIII. 335. Every part of the metropolis is divided into beats.
c. 1860. Thackeray, Ball. Policem. (1879), 251. I paced upon my beat With steady step and slow.
b. A course habitually traversed by any one; sometimes fig., esp. in phrase, Out of one’s beat: not in one’s sphere or department.
1836. Gen. P. Thompson, Lett. Represent., 153. A highwayman could never get more than the value of his beat.
1836. Dickens, Sk. Boz, i. 31. The costermongers repaired to their ordinary ‘beats’ in the suburbs.
1839. Carlyle, Chartism, iv. (1858), 21. Europe, Asia, Africa, and America lay somewhere out of their beat.
1862. Sat. Rev., 15 March, 295. Ask him why anything is so and so, and you have got out of his beat.
11. A tract over which a sportsman ranges in pursuit of game.
1875. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, I. I. i. § 1. The frauds … are enough to make him cautious before engaging a beat.
1884. Weekly Times, 29 Aug., 14/4. On the first day’s beat he saw one brace of barren birds.
12. In sailing: One of the transverse courses in beating to windward.
1880. Daily Tel., 7 Sept., 3/3. Anxious moments follow next on the beat to windward.
13. Beat-up of quarters: assault, reconnaissance.
1870. Daily News, 18 Oct., 6/3. The beat-up of the enemy’s quarters about Borny and Grigy … took place after all.
