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Beat down   /bit daʊn/   Listen
verb
Beat  v. t.  (past beat; past part. beaten; pres. part. beating)  
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." "They did beat the gold into thin plates."
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."
4.
To dash against, or strike, as with water or wind. "A frozen continent... beat with perpetual storms."
5.
To tread, as a path. "Pass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way."
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." "For loveliness, it would be hard to beat that."
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?"
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."
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.
Synonyms: To strike; pound; bang; buffet; maul; drub; thump; baste; thwack; thrash; pommel; cudgel; belabor; conquer; defeat; vanquish; overcome.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Beat down" Quotes from Famous Books



... half out of the window into the cold night air. The wind was rising, and came in great gusts. The rain beat down on her. It did her good. A still, calm night would not have soothed her as this did. The wild tattered clouds, hurrying past the moon, gave her a foolish kind of pleasure that almost made her smile a vacant smile. The blast-driven rain came on her again, and drenched ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... somewhat subsided, they are enticed one by one to enter a narrow passage leading to the second enclosure. As soon as one enters in, the entrance is closed, and as the passage is so narrow that it cannot turn round, it soon fatigues itself by unavailing exertions to beat down the barrier. Strong ropes with running nooses are now laid down, and no sooner does the animal put his foot within one of them, than the rope is drawn tight by some of the hunters who are stationed on a small scaffold which has ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... God to keep the race Awake to the divine and to the orders Of universal and harmonious life, All interfused with Universal love, Which love is God, lest blindness, atheism, Which sees no order, reason, no intent Beat down the race to welter in the mire When storms, and floods come. And the sons of God, The leaders of the race from age to age Are chosen for their separate work, each work Fits in the given order. All who suffer The martyrdom of thought, whether they think Themselves as servants of ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... he proceeded, "an' if there'd ben anythin' thar I 'low I'd hev seed it. But thar wasn't nothin', nothin' but the empty rooms an' a dead leaf or so es hed blowed in through a broken winder, an' the pile o' ashes in the fireplace beat down with the rain as hed fell down the chimney. Mighty lonesome an' still them ashes looked; an' thar wasn't nothin' but them an' the leaves,——an' a bit ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... tied hands clutched on to his Makloofa saddle, and his fat body swayed dangerously from side to side with every stride of the camel. His wounded leg was oozing with blood and clotted with flies, and the burning desert sun beat down upon his bare head, for he had lost both hat and umbrella in the scuffle. A rising fever flecked his large, white cheeks with a touch of colour, and brought a light into his brown ox-eyes. He had always seemed a somewhat gross and vulgar person ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle


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