march to the beat of a different drum
march to the beat of a different drum verb: to do things in one's own way regardless of societal norms and conventional expectations.
Verb
march to the beat of a different drum (third-person singular simple present marches to the beat of a different drum, present participle marching to the beat of a different drum, simple past and past participle marched to the beat of a different drum)
- To do things in one's own way regardless of societal norms and conventional expectations.
- Siegfried and Roy, two nuts from Germany, are out of their wealthy little minds. They live in a mansion whose ceiling is painted like the Sistine Chapel, with either Siegfried or Roy (who can remember?) in place of Adam. Roy has a "meditation chamber" (the rest of us have dressing rooms) furnished...1994 January 10, Penn Jillette, “Las Vegas: Tonight! Miracles, Live!”, in Time
- The ad ends with a shot of Mark pushing the car down a hill and Suzanne saying, "He still marches to the beat of a different drum."2004, Danny Hakim, “E.P.A. Energy-Saving Spots Give Cars Short Shrift”, in New York Times, retrieved 21 Jul 2011
Examples of march to the beat of a different drum in a sentence
- They march to the beat of a different drum machine.1994 January 10, Penn Jillette, “Las Vegas: Tonight! Miracles, Live!”, in Time:
- "the good people don't like it when you take a path different from theirs," when you march to the beat of a different drum.2004, Larry Portis, French Frenzies: A Social History of Pop Music in France, →ISBN, page 114:
Forms of march to the beat of a different drum
| third-person singular present | marches to the beat of a different drum |
|---|---|
| present participle | marching to the beat of a different drum |
| past participle | marched to the beat of a different drum |
| past | marched to the beat of a different drum |
| alternative form | march to a different drum |
| alternative form | march to a different drummer |
| alternative form | march to one's own drum |
| alternative form | march to one's own drummer |
| alternative form | march to the beat of a different drummer |
| alternative form | march to the beat of one's own drum |
| alternative form | march to the beat of one's own drummer |
| alternative form | march to a different beat |
| alternative form | march to a different tune |
| alternative form | march to the beat of a different tune |
Questions about march to the beat of a different drum
- What does march to the beat of a different drum mean?
- March to the beat of a different drum means to do things in one's own way regardless of societal norms and conventional expectations.
- How do you use march to the beat of a different drum in a sentence?
- They march to the beat of a different drum machine.
- What part of speech is march to the beat of a different drum?
- March to the beat of a different drum is a verb.
- What is the past tense of march to the beat of a different drum?
- The past tense of march to the beat of a different drum is marched to the beat of a different drum.
Words near march to the beat of a different drum in the dictionary
- march to a different beat
- march to a different drum
- march to a different drummer
- march to one's own drum
- march to one's own drummer
- march to the beat of a different drum
- march to the beat of a different drummer
- march to the beat of one's own drum
- march to the beat of one's own drummer
- March to the Sea
- march-movement
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: march to the beat of a different drum (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: En-au-march to the beat of a different drum.ogg.
Cite this entry: “march to the beat of a different drum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/march_to_the_beat_of_a_different_drum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.