FluentPlex

beat

/biːt/ noun B2
  1. A stroke; a blow.
  2. A pulsation or throb. · a beat of the heart· the beat of the pulse
  3. A pulse on the beat level, the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic unit. Thus a beat is the basic time unit of a piece.
  4. A rhythm. · I love watching her dance to a pretty drum beat with a bouncy rhythm!
  5. The rhythm signalled by a conductor or other musician to the members of a group of musicians.
  6. The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.
  7. The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency.
  8. A short pause in a play, screenplay, or teleplay, for dramatic or comedic effect.

Plural beats

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From the library

Johnnie beats the drum.
A Child's Garden of Verses, p. 6 · C1
Diana says she never saw the beat of me for hitting on fancy names for places.
Anne of Green Gables, p. 106 · C1
These sounds made the little girl’s heart beat fast, for she did not know what made them; but Toto knew, and he walked close to Dorothy’s side, and did not even bark in return.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, p. 31 · B2
It was fortunate the Tin Woodman had no heart at that moment, for it would have beat loud and fast from terror.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, p. 73 · B2

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Words, meanings, pronunciations and translations from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); how common each word is from wordfreq. Made into this dictionary by FluentPlex.