Word.ws English Dictionary

beats a dead horse

beats a dead horse is the third-person singular simple present indicative of beat a dead horse.

Meaning of beat a dead horse

Verb

beat a dead horse (third-person singular simple present beats a dead horse, present participle beating a dead horse, simple past beat a dead horse, past participle beaten a dead horse or (colloquial) beat a dead horse)

  1. (idiomatic) To persist or continue far beyond any purpose, interest or reason.
    • After having shown us three hours of instructional and safety videos, the inspector was simply beating a dead horse by telling us to buckle up as we got into the van.

Questions about beats a dead horse

What is beats a dead horse the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Beats a dead horse is the third-person singular simple present indicative of beat a dead horse.

Words near beats a dead horse in the dictionary

  1. Beatos
  2. Beatrice
  3. Beatrix
  4. Beatriz
  5. beats
  6. beats a dead horse
  7. beats a hasty retreat
  8. beats about
  9. beats about the bush
  10. beats all
  11. beats around the bush

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beats a dead horse (page history and authors); beat a dead horse (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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