different between smash vs beat

English

Etymology

From a blend of smack +? mash. Compare Swedish smask (“a light explosion, crack, report”), dialectal Swedish smaska (“to smack, kiss”), Danish smaske (“to smack with the lips”), Low German smaksen (“to smack with the lips, kiss”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /smæ?/
• Rhymes: -æ?

Noun

smash (plural smashes)

1. The sound of a violent impact; a violent striking together.

2. (Britain, colloquial) A traffic collision.

3. (colloquial) Something very successful or popular (as music, food, fashion, etc); a hit.
   • 2019, Ginaluca Russo, "Taylor Swift Stuns In a Periwinkle Ruffle Mini Dress on the Billboard Music Awards Red Carpet", Teen Vogue, 1 May 2019:

     All together, this look is a smash in our books.
4. (tennis) A very hard overhead shot hit sharply downward.
5. (colloquial, archaic) A bankruptcy.
6. A kind of julep cocktail containing chunks of fresh fruit that can be eaten after finishing the drink.

Synonyms

• (sound of a violent impact): crash
• (colloquial: traffic accident): crash
• (colloquial: something very successful): smash hit

Descendants

• ? Czech: sme?
• ? Serbo-Croatian: sme?

Translations

Verb

smash (third-person singular simple present smashes, present participle smashing, simple past and past participle smashed)

1. To break (something brittle) violently.
   • 1895, H. G. Wells, The Time Machine, Chapter X

     Now, I still think that for this box of matches to have escaped the wear of time for immemorial years was a strange, and for me, a most fortunate thing. Yet oddly enough I found here a far more unlikely substance, and that was camphor. I found it in a sealed jar, that, by chance, I supposed had been really hermetically sealed. I fancied at first the stuff was paraffin wax, and smashed the jar accordingly. But the odor of camphor was unmistakable.

2. (intransitive) To be destroyed by being smashed.

3. To hit extremely hard.

4. (figuratively) To ruin completely and suddenly.

5. (transitive, figuratively) To defeat overwhelmingly; to gain a comprehensive success over.

   I really smashed that English exam.

6. (US) To deform through continuous pressure.

7. (transitive, slang, vulgar) To have sexual intercourse with.
   • 2020 November 7, Dave Chappelle on Saturday Night Live:

     Farmersonly.com. A website that begs the question, what kind of bitch only smashes with farmers?

Synonyms

• (break violently): dash, shatter
• (be destroyed by being smashed): shatter
• (hit extremely hard): pound, thump, wallop; see also Thesaurus:hit
• (ruin completely and suddenly): dash
• (defeat overwhelmingly): slaughter, trounce
• (have sexual intercourse with): coitize, go to bed with, sleep with; see also Thesaurus:copulate with

Descendants

• ? Catalan: esmaixar

Translations

Related terms

Anagrams

• HMSAS, SAHMs, Sahms, Shams, shams

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English smash.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sma?/

Noun

smash m (plural smashs)

1. (tennis) smash

Related terms

• smasher

Further reading

• “smash” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English smash.

Noun

smash m (invariable)

1. smash (tennis shot)

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English smash.

Noun

smash m (plural smashes)

1. (tennis) smash (overhead shot hit sharply downward)

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: b?t, IPA^(key): /bi?t/
• Homophone: beet
• Rhymes: -i?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English beten, from Old English b?atan (“to beat, pound, strike, lash, dash, thrust, hurt, injure”), from Proto-West Germanic *bautan, from Proto-Germanic *bautan? (“to push, strike”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?ewd- (“to hit, strike”).

Compare Old Irish fo·botha (“he threatened”), Latin confut? (“I strike down”), f?stis (“stick, club”), Albanian bahe (“sling”), Lithuanian baudžiù, Old Armenian ???? (but?)).

Noun

beat (plural beats)

1. A stroke; a blow.

   • He, […] with a careless beat, / Struck out the mute creation at a heat.

2. A pulsation or throb.

3. (music) A pulse on the beat level, the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic unit. Thus a beat is the basic time unit of a piece.
4. A rhythm.
   1. (music) The rhythm signalled by a conductor or other musician to the members of a group of musicians.
5. The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music.
6. The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency
7. (authorship) A short pause in a play, screenplay, or teleplay, for dramatic or comedic effect; a plot point or story development.
8. (by extension) An area of a person's responsibility, especially
   1. The route patrolled by a police officer or a guard.
   2. (journalism) The primary focus of a reporter's stories (such as police/courts, education, city government, business etc.).
      • 2020 April, Elizabeth Kolbert, Why we won't avoid a climate catastrophe[2], National Geographic

        As an adult, I became a journalist whose beat is the environment. In a way, I’ve turned my youthful preoccupations into a profession.

9. (dated) An act of reporting news or scientific results before a rival; a scoop.
   • 1898, unknown author, Scribner's Magazine Volume 24

     It's a beat on the whole country.

10. (colloquial, dated) That which beats, or surpasses, another or others.

11. (dated or obsolete, Southern US) A precinct.
12. (dated) A place of habitual or frequent resort.
    1. (Australia) An area frequented by gay men in search of sexual activity. See gay beat.
13. (archaic) A low cheat or swindler.

14. (hunting) The act of scouring, or ranging over, a tract of land to rouse or drive out game; also, those so engaged, collectively.
    • 1911, Hedley Peek and Frederick George Aflalo, Encyclopaedia of Sport

      Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the last moment, when the beat is close to them.

15. (fencing) A smart tap on the adversary's blade.
16. (slang) A makeup look; compare beat one's face.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Pennsylvania German: biede

Translations

See also

• (piece of hip-hop music): track

Verb

beat (third-person singular simple present beats, present participle beating, simple past beat, past participle beaten or beat)

1. (transitive) To hit; strike

   Synonyms: knock, pound, strike, hammer, whack; see also Thesaurus:attack, Thesaurus:hit
2. (transitive) To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm.

3. (intransitive) To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly.
4. (intransitive) To move with pulsation or throbbing.
5. (transitive) To win against; to defeat or overcome; to do or be better than; to excel (someone) in a particular, competitive event.
6. (intransitive, nautical) To sail to windward using a series of alternate tacks across the wind.
7. (transitive) To strike (water, foliage etc.) in order to drive out game; to travel through (a forest etc.) for hunting.
8. To mix food in a rapid fashion. Compare whip.

9. (transitive, Britain, In haggling for a price) of a buyer, to persuade the seller to reduce a price

   Synonym: negotiate

10. (transitive) To indicate by beating or drumming.

11. To tread, as a path.
12. To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble.
13. To be in agitation or doubt.
14. To make a sound when struck.

15. (military, intransitive) To make a succession of strokes on a drum.

16. 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.
17. (transitive) To arrive at a place before someone.

18. (intransitive, Britain, slang, vulgar) To have sexual intercourse.

    Synonyms: do it, get it on, have sex, shag; see also Thesaurus:copulate

19. (transitive, slang) To rob.

Conjugation

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

beat (comparative more beat, superlative most beat)

1. (US slang) exhausted

2. dilapidated, beat up

3. (African-American Vernacular and gay slang) Having impressively attractive makeup

4. (slang) boring
5. (slang, of a person) ugly

Synonyms

• (exhausted): See also Thesaurus:fatigued
• (dilapidated): See also Thesaurus:ramshackle
• (boring): See also Thesaurus:boring
• (ugly): See also Thesaurus:ugly

Translations

Etymology 2

From beatnik

Noun

beat (plural beats)

1. A beatnik.
   • 2008, David Wills, Beatdom, Issue Three, March 2008

     The beats were pioneers with no destination, changing the world one impulse at a time.

Derived terms

• beat generation

References

• DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ?ISBN.

Anagrams

• Bate, Beta, Teba, abet, bate, beta

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin be?tus.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /be?at/
• Rhymes: -at

Adjective

beat (feminine beata, masculine plural beats, feminine plural beates)

1. saint, beatified

Derived terms

• beateria

Noun

beat m (plural beats)

1. monk

Related terms

• beatífic

Further reading

• “beat” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “beat” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “beat” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “beat” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English beat.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bit/
• Hyphenation: beat
• Rhymes: -it
• Homophones: bied, biedt, biet

Noun

beat m (plural beats, diminutive beatje n)

1. A beat, a rhythmic pattern, notably in music
2. (music) beat an early rock genre.

Derived terms

• beatmis
• beatmuziek

Anagrams

• bate

Finnish

Etymology

Borrowed from English beat.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bi?t/, [?bi?t?]

Noun

beat

1. (music) beat

Declension

Synonyms

• biitti

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English beat.

Adjective

beat (invariable)

1. beat (50s US literary and 70s UK music scenes)

Noun

beat m (invariable)

1. beat (rhythm accompanying music)

Anagrams

• beta

Latin

Verb

beat

1. third-person singular present active indicative of be?

Romanian

Etymology

From Late Latin bibitus (“drunk”), from Latin bib? (“drink”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [be?at]

Adjective

beat m or n (feminine singular beat?, masculine plural be?i, feminine and neuter plural bete)

1. drunk, drunken, intoxicated; tipsy

Declension

Synonyms

• îmb?tat
• b?ut

Antonyms

• treaz

Derived terms

• be?ie

Related terms

• bea
• be?iv
• îmb?ta

Volapük

Noun

beat (nominative plural beats)

1. happiness

Declension