What is beat?

Famous quotes containing the word beat:

“You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come:
Knock as you please, there’s nobody at home.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

“Bid her paint till day of doom,
To this favour she must come.
Bid the merchant gather wealth,
The usurer exact by stealth,
The proud man beat it from his thought,
Yet to this shape all must be brought.”
—Francis Beaumont (1584-1616)

“Now you strike like the blind man; ‘twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)