Search and compare thousands of words and phrases in American Sign Language (ASL). The largest collection online.
How to sign: come out better in a competition, race, or conflict
"Agassi beat Becker in the tennis championship"; "We beat the competition"; "Harvard defeated Yale in the last football game";
Similiar / Same: beat out, vanquish, trounce, crush, shell
Categories: defeat, get the better of, overcome
Within this category: bat, cheat, checkmate, eliminate, get the jump, immobilize, outdo, outfight, outplay, outpoint, overpower, spread-eagle, surpass, walk over, whomp, worst
How to sign: the rhythmic contraction and expansion of the arteries with each beat of the heart
"he could feel the beat of her heart";
Similiar / Same: heartbeat, pulse, pulsation
Categories: periodic event, recurrent event
Within this category: diastole, systole, throb
How to sign: the basic rhythmic unit in a piece of music
"the piece has a fast rhythm"; "the conductor set the beat";
Similiar / Same: rhythm, musical rhythm
Categories: musical time
Within this category: backbeat, downbeat, syncopation, upbeat
How to sign: give a beating to; subject to a beating, either as a punishment or as an act of aggression
"Thugs beat him up when he walked down the street late at night"; "The teacher used to beat the students";
Similiar / Same: beat up, work over
Within this category: belabour, cane, clobber, flog, knock cold, pistol-whip, rough up, soak, spank, strong-arm, thrash
How to sign: stir vigorously
"beat the egg whites"; "beat the cream";
Similiar / Same: scramble
Categories: agitate, commove, disturb, raise up, shake up, stir up, vex
Within this category: cream, whisk
How to sign: move rhythmically
"Her heart was beating fast";
Categories: move
Within this category: flap, palpitate, pulsate, thrash
How to sign: make a sound like a clock or a timer
"the clocks were ticking"; "the grandfather clock beat midnight";
Similiar / Same: ticktock, ticktack, tick
How to sign: (prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verse
Similiar / Same: cadence, metre, meter, measure
Categories: poetic rhythm, prosody, rhythmic pattern
Within this category: catalexis, common measure, metrical foot, scansion
How to sign: beat through cleverness and wit
"I beat the traffic"; "She outfoxed her competitors";
Similiar / Same: outwit, outsmart, overreach, outfox, circumvent
Categories: exceed, outdo, outgo, outmatch, outperform, outstrip, surmount, surpass
How to sign: be a mystery or bewildering to
"This beats me!"; "Got me--I don't know the answer!"; "a vexing problem"; "This question really stuck me";
See also: solve, figure out, puzzle out, puzzle over, lick, work out, work
Similiar / Same: perplex, puzzle, mystify, baffle, bewilder, flummox, nonplus, dumbfound, stupefy, amaze, gravel, vex, pose, stick, get
Categories: bedevil, befuddle, confound, confuse, discombobulate, fox, fuddle, throw
