Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use beam in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Beam means any large piece of timber or iron long in proportion to its thickness, and prepared for use. Example: “This ship has more beam than that one.”

Examples of beam by meaning

nounOne of the principal horizontal structural members, usually of steel, timber, or concrete, of a building.

  • Lucie opened the door: and what do you think there was inside the hill?—a nice clean kitchen with a flagged floor and wooden beams—just like any other farm kitchen.1905, Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle

nounThe maximum width of a vessel (note that a vessel with a beam of 15 foot can also be said to be 15 foot abeam).

  • This ship has more beam than that one.

nounThe direction across a vessel, perpendicular to fore-and-aft.

  • As the vessel passes a landmark, the landmark is said to be abeam. Once the vessel has passed the landmark, it falls abaft the beam, then it gradually falls astern.

nounA ray or collection of approximately parallel rays emitted from the sun or other luminous body.

  • a beam of light
  • a beam of energy
  • A total of 15,000 beams of neutrinos were fired over a period of 3 years from CERN towards Gran Sassoin Italy, 730km (500 miles) away, where they were picked up by giant detectors.2011 September 22, Nick Collins, “Speed of light 'broken' by scientists”, in Daily Telegraph

nounA ray; a gleam.

  • a beam of hope, or of comfort

nounA broad smile.

  • He could barely remove the beam from his face when he said: "Arsenal is a massive club and you feel the pressure but I try to put in performances.2023 September 3, Phil McNulty, “Declan Rice: The game-changing midfielder Arsenal need for title challenge”, in BBC Sport

verbTo emit beams of light; to shine; to radiate.

  • to beam forth light
  • Jesus beams golden light from his solar plexus into Eric's root chakra.2019, Justin Blackburn, The Bisexual Christian Suburban Failure Enlightening Bipolar Blues, page 23

verbTo smile broadly or especially cheerfully.

  • to beam with pride

More sentences with beam

  • As the sun darted forth his beams, she darted a meaningful glance at me.From the entry dart
  • With great effort and a big crowbar I managed to lever the beam off the floor.From the entry lever
  • It is dangerous to look at the beam of a laser while it is in operation.From the entry operation
  • Don't move that beam! It's a support for the whole platform.From the entry support
  • A lintel or beam may have four inches of bearing upon the wall.From the entry bearing
  • He brought his portable sawmill and turned the old beams into interesting flooring.From the entry sawmill
  • A beam of light shone into the interior of a mirrored sphere would reverberate in itself.From the entry reverberate
  • The beams supporting the roof had rotted, causing the entire house to fall down.From the entry fall down
  • I have a 5-element monoband beam (antenna) for the 10-metre band.From the entry monoband
  • The beam initially diffracts linearly and self-focusses slowly into a soliton.From the entry self-focus
  • You'll hit your head agen the beam, if you don't scouch.From the entry scouch
  • The hallway was protected by a tripmine, which exploded when the laser beam was broken.From the entry tripmine
  • She looked at the Heavenward beam of light emitting from the rescue beacon.From the entry heavenward
  • The torch beam played around the room.From the entry play
  • Watch your head, don't crack it on that beam.From the entry crack
  • Don’t move that beam! It supports the whole platform.From the entry support
  • The Arbuzov reaction is performed by adding the bromide to the phosphite, neat. The molecular beam was neat acetylene.From the entry neat
  • The arena is grey with white beams.From the entry arena
  • The beam has twenty feet of bearing between its supports.From the entry bearing
  • Shooting beams of light played over the sea.From the entry shooting
  • There were little boreholes in the oak beam, indicating that insects had once taken some interest in it.From the entry borehole
  • Sensing danger, Captain Kirk decided to beam down to the surface with Spock, McCoy, and a couple of redshirts.From the entry redshirt
  • Riker: I suggest we beam a section aboard for analysis.From the entry make it so
  • I cracked myhead on a beam.From the entry crack
  • Once enough of the gas particles are in a higher energy state, they will begin to lase and give off a coherent beam.From the entry lase
  • For a cantilevered beam, the steel reinforcement should be placed at the top to carry the hogging moment along the upper face.From the entry hogging
  • We're sailing on a beam reach.From the entry beam reach
  • Lead bricks were placed around the radioactive source so that the escaping gamma rays would be limited to a collimated beam rather than filling the lab.From the entry collimate
  • Based on his assessment of the designer's intent, he ordered that the welds on the support beams be built up larger than those seen in the prototype.From the entry based on

Meaning of beam

  1. noun Any large piece of timber or iron long in proportion to its thickness, and prepared for use.
  2. noun One of the principal horizontal structural members, usually of steel, timber, or concrete, of a building.
  3. noun One of the transverse members of a ship's frame on which the decks are laid, and acting as part of the support for keeping the sides of the vessel in shape — supported at the sides by knees in wooden ships and by stringers in steel ones; cf. abeam, beam-ends.

Full definition of beam

Questions about beam in a sentence

How do you use beam in a sentence?
Beam is used as a noun and verb. For example: “This ship has more beam than that one.”
What is a short sentence with beam?
“a beam of energy”
What does beam mean?
Beam means any large piece of timber or iron long in proportion to its thickness, and prepared for use.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beam (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use beam in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/beam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.