7. (Mil.) To make a succession of strokes on a drum; as, the drummers beat to call soldiers to their quarters.
8. (Acoustics & Mus.) To sound with more or less rapid alternations of greater and less intensity, so as to produce a pulsating effect; -- said of instruments, tones, or vibrations, not perfectly in unison.
A beating wind (Naut.), a wind which necessitates tacking in order to make progress. -- To beat about, to try to find; to search by various means or ways. Addison. -- To beat about the bush, to approach a subject circuitously. -- To beat up and down (Hunting), to run first one way and then another; -- said of a stag. -- To beat up for recruits, to go diligently about in order to get helpers or participators in an enterprise.
Beat (&?;), n. 1. A stroke; a blow.
He, with a careless beat,
Struck out the mute creation at a heat.
Dryden.
2. A recurring stroke; a throb; a pulsation; as, a beat of the heart; the beat of the pulse.
3. (Mus.) (a) The rise or fall of the hand or foot, marking the divisions of time; a division of the measure so marked. In the rhythm of music the beat is the unit. (b) A transient grace note, struck immediately before the one it is intended to ornament.
4. (Acoustics & Mus.) A sudden swelling or reënforcement of a sound, recurring at regular intervals, and produced by the interference of sound waves of slightly different periods of vibrations; applied also, by analogy, to other kinds of wave motions; the pulsation or throbbing produced by the vibrating together of two tones not quite in unison. See Beat, v. i., 8.