inbeat

inbeat

English

Etymology

From Middle English inbeten, equivalent to in- +‎ beat.

Verb

inbeat (third-person singular simple present inbeats, present participle inbeating, simple past inbeat, past participle inbeaten)

1. (transitive) To beat in.
   • 1855, Mary Matilda Howard, Hastings, past and present:

     […] and in part imputeth it, that the river Rother is not contained in his channel, and so loseth his force to carry away the sands and beach which the sea doth inbeat into the haven.

   • 1873, Henry Ward Beecher, Plymouth pulpit:

     […] a man may be superior to his circumstances, and even to these constantly outlying and inbeating influences which deteriorate his life.

Noun

inbeat (plural inbeats)

1. An inward beat.
   • 2002, Donald L. Miller, Henry Steele Commager, The Story of World War II:

     The bullet […] came through my chest between two ribs, slightly shattering them, went past my heart, as the doctors later told me, when it must have been on an inbeat instead of an outbeat, and then missed my backbone as it went through the other side of my body about an inch.

Adjective

inbeat (not comparable)

1. Occurring on an inward beat.
   • 1999, Elizabeth A. Grosz, Becomings: explorations in time, memory, and futures:

     […] two-beat: an outbeat gesture of (usually circumscribed) ecstasis as my glance is released from my bodily self, and an inbeat return of the glance to the bodily-self now modified by having just perceived its own image in the mirror.

Anagrams

• abient, beatin', binate