beat off

Verb

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

1. (figuratively, often, transitive) To drive something away with blows or military force.
   • ...which Action did not so much grieve the English, as trouble and vex the Picts and Scots, who were incessantly gauled and frequently beat off by these Danish Troops.1697, Carradoc Of Lhancarvan, The history of Wales, page 33
   • First reports were that the Reds, in five gunboats and swarms of junks, succeeded in landing on tiny Wuchiu in Formosa Strait, but were beaten off with many captured.1954 November 27, “Red Assault on Tiny Isle Beaten Off, Say Nationalists”, in The Daily Colonist, volume 96, number 294, Victoria, British Columbia, page 1, column 6
2. (Canada, US, colloquial, idiomatic, intransitive, vulgar) To masturbate by stimulating one's own penis.
   • Example 1: "I don't need a girlfriend. I just need some swimsuit catalogs, so I can beat off six or seven times a day."2003, David Burke, The Slangman guide to dirty English: dangerous expressions Americans use, page 13

   Synonyms:

   abuse, bash one out, bate, beat it, crank one out, fap, frig, goon, jack off, jack it

3. (colloquial, idiomatic, intransitive, vulgar) To waste time.
   • I beat off at work all day; I didn't get anything done.
4. (slang, transitive, African-American Vernacular) To shoot (a gun).
   • He beat his pistol off into the air.