Word.ws English Dictionary

beat one's breast

beat one's breast verb: to ostentatiously display remorse, sorrow, or upset.

Verb

beat one's breast (third-person singular simple present beats one's breast, present participle beating one's breast, simple past beat one's breast, past participle beaten one's breast or (colloquial) beat one's breast)

  1. (figuratively) To ostentatiously display remorse, sorrow, or upset.

Synonyms of beat one's breast

Forms of beat one's breast

third-person singular presentbeats one's breast
present participlebeating one's breast
pastbeat one's breast
past participlebeaten one's breast
past participle (colloquial)beat one's breast

Origin of beat one's breast

For the meaning development compare Proto-Slavic *plakati ultimately from *pleh₂k-, *pleh₂g- (“to beat”) (whence also Latin plangō (whence plangent, plain)).

Questions about beat one's breast

What does beat one's breast mean?
Beat one's breast means to ostentatiously display remorse, sorrow, or upset.
What part of speech is beat one's breast?
Beat one's breast is a verb.
What is the past tense of beat one's breast?
The past tense of beat one's breast is beat one's breast.

Words near beat one's breast in the dictionary

  1. beat off with a stick
  2. beat on
  3. beat one's ass
  4. beat one's brain
  5. beat one's brains out
  6. beat one's breast
  7. beat one's chest
  8. beat one's face
  9. beat one's head against a stone wall
  10. beat one's meat
  11. beat one's swords into ploughshares

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beat one's breast (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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