E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Beat (To).
To overcome or get the better of. This does not mean to strike, which is the Anglo-Saxon beátan, but to better, to be better, from the Anglo-Saxon verb bétan.
1
Dead beat. So completely beaten or wersted as to have no leg to stand on. Like a dead man with no fight left in him; quite tired out.
2
“I’m dead beat, but I thought I’d like to come in and see you all once more.”—Roe: Without a Home, p. 32.
Dead beat escapement (of a watch). One in which there is no reverse motion of the escape-wheel.
3
That beats Ban’agher. Wonderfully inconsistent and absurd — exceedingly ridiculous. Banagher is a town in Ireland, on the Shannon, in King’s County. It formerly sent two members to Parliament, and was, of course, a famous pocket borough. When a member spoke of a family borough where every voter was a man employed by the lord, it was not unusual to reply, “Well, that beats Banagher.”
4
“‘Well,’ says he, ‘to gratify them I will. So just a morsel. But, Jack, this beats Bannagher’ (sic).”—W. B. Yeats: Fairy Tales of the Irish Peasantry, p. 196.
That beats Termagant. Your ranting, raging pomposity, or exaggeration, surpasses that of Termagant (q.v.).
5
To beat hollow is to beat wholly, to be wholly the superior.
6
To beat up against the wind. To tack against an adverse wind; to get the better of the wind.
