Word.ws English Dictionary

beat about

beat about verb: to search for something; to look around for something; to hunt for something.

Verb

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

  1. (US, intransitive) To search for something; to look around for something; to hunt for something.
    • He's been beating about for that supposed treasure.

Forms of beat about

third-person singular presentbeats about
present participlebeating about
pastbeat about
past participlebeaten about
past participlebeat about

Questions about beat about

What does beat about mean?
Beat about means to search for something; to look around for something; to hunt for something.
What part of speech is beat about?
Beat about is a verb.
What is the past tense of beat about?
The past tense of beat about is beat about.

Words near beat about in the dictionary

  1. beat 'em up
  2. beat 'em ups
  3. beat a dead horse
  4. beat a hasty retreat
  5. beat a retreat
  6. beat about
  7. beat about the bush
  8. beat all
  9. beat around the bush
  10. beat as one
  11. beat back

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beat about (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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