beat a retreat in English

Forms: beats a retreat [present, singular, third-person], beating a retreat [participle, present], beat a retreat [past], beaten a retreat [participle, past], beat retreat [alternative] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Etymology: See beat (“to signal beating a drum”). Head templates: {{en-verb|<,,beat,beaten>}} beat a retreat (third-person singular simple present beats a retreat, present participle beating a retreat, simple past beat a retreat, past participle beaten a retreat)

Alternative forms

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "See beat (“to signal beating a drum”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "beats a retreat",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beating a retreat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat a retreat",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beaten a retreat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat retreat",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,beat,beaten>"
      },
      "expansion": "beat a retreat (third-person singular simple present beats a retreat, present participle beating a retreat, simple past beat a retreat, past participle beaten a retreat)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To leave hastily in the face of opposition."
      ],
      "id": "en-beat_a_retreat-en-verb-cvXQOc6E",
      "links": [
        [
          "leave",
          "leave"
        ],
        [
          "hastily",
          "hastily"
        ],
        [
          "in the face of",
          "in the face of"
        ],
        [
          "opposition",
          "opposition"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, idiomatic) To leave hastily in the face of opposition."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "beat to quarters"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "beat a retreat"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "See beat (“to signal beating a drum”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "beats a retreat",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beating a retreat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat a retreat",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beaten a retreat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat retreat",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,beat,beaten>"
      },
      "expansion": "beat a retreat (third-person singular simple present beats a retreat, present participle beating a retreat, simple past beat a retreat, past participle beaten a retreat)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "beat to quarters"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To leave hastily in the face of opposition."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "leave",
          "leave"
        ],
        [
          "hastily",
          "hastily"
        ],
        [
          "in the face of",
          "in the face of"
        ],
        [
          "opposition",
          "opposition"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, idiomatic) To leave hastily in the face of opposition."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "beat a retreat"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.

"beat a retreat" meaning in English

Verb

Alternative forms