[Either the direct derivative, or immediate source, of BEAT sb.3, q.v.
(Marshall in 1796 (Eng. Dial. Soc. B. VI. p. 70) seems to identify this with BEAT v.1; others have tried to identify it with BEER v. (ME. béten), either in the sense of improving the soil, or of kindling, or feeding fire, which seems phonetically inadmissible, even if the sense were more probable.)]
To slice off the rough sod from uncultivated or fallow ground, with a beat-ax or breast-plough, in order to burn it, for the purpose at once of destroying it, and of converting it into manure for the land. Hence BEATING vbl. sb.; and the compound Beating-ax = BEAT-AX (under BEAT sb.3).
1534. Fitzherb., Husb., § 8. They must go beate theyr landes with mattockes as they do in many places of Cornewayle, and in som places of Deuonshyre.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 196. About May, they cut vp all the grasse of that ground which must newly be broken, into Turfes, which they call Beating.
1796. W. H. Marshall, Econ. W. Eng., I. 141–2. The one is performed with a ‘BEATING AXE’—namely, a large adze—some five or six inches wide, and ten or twelve inches long; crooked and somewhat hollow or dishing…. This operation is termed ‘HAND BEATING.’
1808. Monthly Mag., Dec., 422. To beet ground: to pare of the turf in order to burn it (Cornwall and Devon).
