Word.ws English Dictionary

beating to the punch

beating to the punch is the present participle and gerund of beat to the punch.

Meaning of beat to the punch

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To carry out an action before another person is able to do so.
    • I was planning to take care of the problem for him, but he beat me to the punch and did it himself.

Questions about beating to the punch

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

Words near beating to the punch in the dictionary

  1. beating the tar out of
  2. beating the wing
  3. beating time
  4. beating to
  5. beating to a pulp
  6. beating to the punch
  7. beating up
  8. beating up on
  9. beating with the ugly stick
  10. beating-heart transplant
  11. beating-heart transplants

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beating to the punch (page history and authors); beat to the punch (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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