Word.ws English Dictionary

skipped a beat

skipped a beat is the simple past and past participle of skip a beat.

Meaning of skip a beat

Verb

skip a beat (third-person singular simple present skips a beat, present participle skipping a beat, simple past and past participle skipped a beat)

  1. (literally) To miss a beat.
  2. (broadly) To experience a strong emotion.
    • My heart seemed to skip a beat when I parked my car at the old Safeway supermarket. My eyes gaped at the same aisles I had strolled through as a child.1997, David J. Pelzer, The lost boy: a foster child's search for the love of a family
  3. (broadly, idiomatic) To momentarily falter.
    • THE MEGHA HAD BEEN on the water for some three hours when Piya heard the engine skip a beat.2005, Amitav Ghosh, The hungry tide

Questions about skipped a beat

What is skipped a beat the simple past and past participle of?
Skipped a beat is the simple past and past participle of skip a beat.

Words near skipped a beat in the dictionary

  1. skipman
  2. skipmen
  3. Skipp
  4. skippable
  5. skipped
  6. skipped a beat
  7. skipped out
  8. skipped rope
  9. skipped school
  10. skipped the line
  11. skipped town

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skipped a beat (page history and authors); skip a beat (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:

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