BEATING

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does beating mean? 

• BEATING (noun)
  The noun BEATING has 2 senses:

1. the act of overcoming or outdoing

2. the act of inflicting corporal punishment with repeated blows

  Familiarity information: BEATING used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BEATING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of overcoming or outdoing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

beating; whipping

Hypernyms ("beating" is a kind of...):

combat; fight; fighting; scrap (the act of fighting; any contest or struggle)

Derivation:

beat (come out better in a competition, race, or conflict)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The act of inflicting corporal punishment with repeated blows

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

beating; drubbing; lacing; licking; thrashing; trouncing; whacking

Hypernyms ("beating" is a kind of...):

corporal punishment (the infliction of physical injury on someone convicted of committing a crime)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "beating"):

flagellation; flogging; lashing; tanning; whipping (beating with a whip or strap or rope as a form of punishment)

flagellation (beating as a source of erotic or religious stimulation)

Derivation:

beat (give a beating to; subject to a beating, either as a punishment or as an act of aggression)

 Context examples 

Finally, she threw herself forward, and, though I could not see her, I could hear the beating of her naked hands against the door.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

My heart was beating finely when we two set forth in the cold night upon this dangerous venture.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The pain of the beating was dull and distant, just as the things their eyes saw and their ears heard seemed dull and distant.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had left off—alas! it was the tune that never DOES leave off—was beating, softly, all the while.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

We had hardly time to take our place behind a pile of luggage when it passed with a rattle and a roar, beating a blast of hot air into our faces.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“If this is bluff upon your part, Mr. Holmes, you have chosen a bad man for your experiment. Let us have no more beating about the bush. What do you mean?”

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Arrhythmias are changes in the normal beating rhythm of the heart.

(Coronary Artery Disease, NIH: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)

I am confident that all the drums and trumpets of a royal army, beating and sounding together just at your ears, could not equal it.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

An unpleasant sensation of irregular and/or forceful beating of the heart.

(Palpitation, NCI Thesaurus)

Cold and cheerless, the wind beating on our faces, the white seas roaring by, we struggled through the day.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)