beat the rap in English

Audio: En-au-beat the rap.ogg

[Australia] Forms: beats the rap [present, singular, third-person], beating the rap [participle, present], beat the rap [past], beaten the rap [participle, past], beat the rap [colloquial, participle, past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Head templates: {{en-verb|<,,beat,beaten:beat􂀿colloquial􂁀>}} beat the rap (third-person singular simple present beats the rap, present participle beating the rap, simple past beat the rap, past participle beaten the rap or (colloquial) beat the rap)

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

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "beats the rap",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beating the rap",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat the rap",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beaten the rap",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat the rap",
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,beat,beaten:beat􂀿colloquial􂁀>"
      },
      "expansion": "beat the rap (third-person singular simple present beats the rap, present participle beating the rap, simple past beat the rap, past participle beaten the rap or (colloquial) beat the rap)",
      "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 escape legal conviction and punishment for a crime which one has been charged with committing; to be acquitted."
      ],
      "id": "en-beat_the_rap-en-verb-uKOjEurt",
      "links": [
        [
          "escape",
          "escape"
        ],
        [
          "legal",
          "legal"
        ],
        [
          "conviction",
          "conviction"
        ],
        [
          "punishment",
          "punishment"
        ],
        [
          "crime",
          "crime"
        ],
        [
          "charge",
          "charge"
        ],
        [
          "commit",
          "commit"
        ],
        [
          "acquit",
          "acquit"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) To escape legal conviction and punishment for a crime which one has been charged with committing; to be acquitted."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride"
        },
        {
          "word": "bum rap"
        },
        {
          "word": "cop a plea"
        },
        {
          "word": "cop to a plea"
        },
        {
          "word": "get off on a technicality"
        },
        {
          "word": "take the rap"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-beat the rap.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/ba/En-au-beat_the_rap.ogg/En-au-beat_the_rap.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/En-au-beat_the_rap.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "beat the rap"
}

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

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "beats the rap",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beating the rap",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat the rap",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beaten the rap",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "beat the rap",
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,beat,beaten:beat􂀿colloquial􂁀>"
      },
      "expansion": "beat the rap (third-person singular simple present beats the rap, present participle beating the rap, simple past beat the rap, past participle beaten the rap or (colloquial) beat the rap)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride"
    },
    {
      "word": "bum rap"
    },
    {
      "word": "cop a plea"
    },
    {
      "word": "cop to a plea"
    },
    {
      "word": "get off on a technicality"
    },
    {
      "word": "take the rap"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English slang",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To escape legal conviction and punishment for a crime which one has been charged with committing; to be acquitted."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "escape",
          "escape"
        ],
        [
          "legal",
          "legal"
        ],
        [
          "conviction",
          "conviction"
        ],
        [
          "punishment",
          "punishment"
        ],
        [
          "crime",
          "crime"
        ],
        [
          "charge",
          "charge"
        ],
        [
          "commit",
          "commit"
        ],
        [
          "acquit",
          "acquit"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) To escape legal conviction and punishment for a crime which one has been charged with committing; to be acquitted."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-beat the rap.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/ba/En-au-beat_the_rap.ogg/En-au-beat_the_rap.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/En-au-beat_the_rap.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "beat the rap"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). 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 the rap" meaning in English

Verb