Word.ws English Dictionary

beating the air

beating the air is the present participle and gerund of beat the air.

Meaning of beat the air

Verb

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

  1. To fight to no purpose, or against an imaginary enemy.

Questions about beating the air

What is beating the air the present participle and gerund of?
Beating the air is the present participle and gerund of beat the air.

Words near beating the air in the dictionary

  1. beating someone round the ears
  2. beating someone's arse
  3. beating someone's ass
  4. beating someone's brains out
  5. beating someone's time
  6. beating the air
  7. beating the bat
  8. beating the bishop
  9. beating the bounds
  10. beating the bushes
  11. beating the clock

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beating the air (page history and authors); beat the air (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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Cite this entry: “beating the air.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beating_the_air. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.