a live beat on the galoot 'The Rip-snorter.' Whoopee! Now is the time to subscribe.
1888. New York Mercury, Aug. 7. But not only steamboats and locomotives were used by reporters for beats, but one newspaper man named Monroe F. Gale made a trip across the Atlantic in a pilot-boat, to get some peculiar news in his own fashion. All things taken into consideration, there never was a bolder voyage over the Atlantic than this made by the 'Romer,' all for the sake of a few 'points' in news.
2. (popular.)—The round of a policeman or watchman when on duty; one's daily round of duty, work, etc.; and, figuratively, one's sphere of influence.
1788. G. A. Stevens, Adv. of a Speculist, i., 211. The first evening I took my stand in Fleet Street, to look out for a fare, I was drove from street to street by women of my own profession, who swore I should not come in their beats until I had paid my 'footing.'
1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 31. The costermongers repaired to their ordinary beats in the suburbs.
1862. Saturday Review, 15 March, 295. Ask him why anything is so-and-so, and you have got out of his beat. [m.]
Faire sa nouveauté is said of a French prostitute when seeking fresh fields and pastures new.
Ppl. adj. (popular).—1. Overcome; exhausted; 'done up.' Generally dead-beat (q.v.). [A shortened form of beaten.]—See Beaten out.
1832. Moore, Jerome, etc., wks. II. (1862), 558. Till fairly beat, the saint gave o'er, [m.]
1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffery Hamlyn, ch. xxxvii. 'The lad was getting beat, and couldn't a'gone much further.'
2. Hence also, figuratively, to be baffled; defeated.
Verb (American).—To swindle; to deceive; to cheat.
1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Ap. 12. Later he heard of her marriage to some lawyer or artist named Diss Debar. Previous to this she had been in Montreal and telegraphed that she was dying. She beat the hotel out of a hundred dollars.
Daisy beat (American thieves').—A swindle of the first water; a robbery of magnitude.
To beat hollow—to sticks—to ribands—to fites—all creation—to shivers, etc. (popular).—To excel; to surpass.
1759. Townley, High Life Below Stairs, I., ii. Crab was beat hollow, Careless threw his rider, and Miss Slammerkin had the distemper.
1847. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (1877), p. 55. Many ladies . . . were beat all to sticks by the lovely Odille. [m.]
1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. i. Talk of climate! a real fine day in England, like a really handsome Englishwoman, beats creation.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. i. I rode a race against Bob Dashwood the other morning, . . . and beat him all to ribands.
1879. Lowell, Poetical Works, 418. And there's where I shall beat them hollow.
1889. Modern Society, 19 Oct., p. 1302. (How the Nobility live in Germany.) Germans beat the English hollow at drinking beer; the ladies drink it, and the children also, like milk; and it seems to agree with them, for they are very robust. They are not ceremonious at any meal, and eat as if in a hurry for a train, cutting up all on their plate first, then forking it in with the aid of bread or their fingers.
The French say arriver bon premier, 'to arrive' or 'be a good first.' Cf., synonyms in A1.
To get a beat on is to get the advantage of. The same idea is expressed in the phrase to beat one's way through the world; in other words, to push one's interests with vigour and pertinacity. As used by thieves and their associates, to
