Sports & Fitness vocabulary · Competition & Scoring

Beat

Meaning in sports & fitness, with examples

/bit/verbCore term

In sports & fitness, beat means: To defeat a person or team in a game or competition; also to do better than a time or a record.

In Turkish: yenmek, geçmek

How it is used

One of the most common verbs in sport. You beat a team, an opponent or a record ("beat the world record"). The past forms are beat and beaten: "We beat them last year", "They have never been beaten at home."

Example sentences

  1. We beat them 3–0 in the semi-final.

  2. He beat his previous best by four seconds.

Common collocations

  • beat a team
  • beat the record
  • narrowly beat
  • beat someone easily

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Competition & Scoring

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: