Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BEAT'ING, n.

The act of striking or giving blows; punishment or chastisement by blows. The beating of flax and hemp is an operation which renders them more soft and pliable. For this purpose, they are made into rolls and laid in a trough, where they are beat till no roughness or hardness can be felt. – Encyc. In book-binding, beating is performed by laying the book in quires or sheets folded, on a block, and beating it with a heavy broad-faced hammer. On this operation the elegance of the binding and the easy opening of the book chiefly depend. – Encyc. Beating the wind, was a practice in the ancient trial by combat. If one of the combatants did not appear on the field, the other was to beat the wind, by making flourishes with his weapons; by which he was entitled to the advantages of a conqueror. Beatings, in music, the regular pulsative swellings of sound produced in an organ by pipes of the same key, when not in unison, and their vibrations not simultaneous or coincident. – Busby.