Word.ws English Dictionary

drumbeat

drumbeat noun: the beating of a drum.

Noun

drumbeat (plural drumbeats)

  1. The beating of a drum.
  2. The sound of a beating drum.
    • This is not the drumbeat of a single drummer leading a charge.2015, Tom Liam Lynch, The Hidden Role of Software in Educational Research, page 54
  3. (broadly) A repetitive beating sound.
    • This music has a groovy drumbeat that makes me dance!
    • The drumbeat of roadside bombs and suicide attacks continued all over the 2d Brigade, 10th Mountain Division's area of operations.2010, Dale Andrade, Surging South of Baghdad, page 108
  4. (figuratively) A driving force.
    • Nevertheless, greatness rarely receives public approval, because most people spend their lives goose-stepping to the drumbeat of economic necessity.1996, Paulette D. Kilmer, The Fear of Sinking, page 48
    • On a more scholarly level the drumbeat of need was signalled too: as when the newly appointed headmaster of the Merchant Taylors' School, Richard Mulcaster, declared: 'it would be a thing verie praiseworthy ... if som one learned and as laborious a man wold gather all the wordes which we vse in our...2004, Simon Winchester, The Meaning of Everything

drumbeat meaning in Tamil and Tagalog

drumbeat in Tamil

கொட்டு

drumbeat in Tagalog

the beating of a drum
gandang, telebong

Examples of drumbeat in a sentence

  • Rycant stood close enough to catch his words despite the drumbeat of rain on the thick leaves above their heads, but only Rectoria picked up the note of relief.2015, Alison Gardiner, The Serpent of Eridor, page 113:
  • What does the drumbeat of your heart say?2020, Mark David Gerson, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write:
  • We can hear the drumbeat of history, right in our own time.2005, R. C. Leonard, Silence of the Drums, page 66:
  • While the partisan wrangling annoyed Clinton, it was the drumbeat of attacks on his character and the constant investigations of his administration that bothered him most of all.2008, Steven M. Gillon, The Pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Rivalry that Defined a Generation:

All 12 example sentences with drumbeat

Forms of drumbeat

pluraldrumbeats

Origin of drumbeat

From drum + beat.

Questions about drumbeat

What does drumbeat mean?
Drumbeat means the beating of a drum.
What is drumbeat in Tamil?
Drumbeat in Tamil is கொட்டு. See Drumbeat meaning in Tamil.
How do you use drumbeat in a sentence?
Rycant stood close enough to catch his words despite the drumbeat of rain on the thick leaves above their heads, but only Rectoria picked up the note of relief.
What part of speech is drumbeat?
Drumbeat is a noun.
What is the plural of drumbeat?
The plural of drumbeat is drumbeats.

Words near drumbeat in the dictionary

  1. drum-head court
  2. drum-head courts
  3. drum-skin
  4. drum-skins
  5. Drumanure
  6. drumbeat
  7. drumbeater
  8. drumbeaters
  9. drumbeating
  10. drumbeatings
  11. drumbeats

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drumbeat (page history and authors); drumbeat (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-drumbeat.wav.

Cite this entry: “drumbeat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drumbeat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.