Word.ws English Dictionary

skipping a beat

skipping a beat is the present participle and gerund 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 skipping a beat

What is skipping a beat the present participle and gerund of?
Skipping a beat is the present participle and gerund of skip a beat.

Words near skipping a beat in the dictionary

  1. skippets
  2. skippier
  3. skippiest
  4. skippin'
  5. skipping
  6. skipping a beat
  7. skipping out
  8. skipping rope
  9. skipping ropes
  10. skipping school
  11. skipping song

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skipping 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.

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