Idiom
beat a retreat
Meaning
To leave hastily in the face of opposition.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The noisy crowd arrived, so we beat a retreat.”
“I beat a retreat when I see my ex-boyfriend at the supermarket.”
“When the boss started asking difficult questions about the budget, the manager quickly beat a retreat to his office.”
“As soon as the stray dogs started barking at us, we beat a retreat toward the safety of the car.”
“The hikers beat a retreat from the mountain trail when they noticed dark storm clouds and felt the first drops of rain.”
“Realizing that their argument was becoming increasingly irrational, he decided to beat a retreat before the situation escalated into an open confrontation.”
Examples
simple
“The noisy crowd arrived, so we beat a retreat.”
“I beat a retreat when I see my ex-boyfriend at the supermarket.”
contextual
“When the boss started asking difficult questions about the budget, the manager quickly beat a retreat to his office.”
“As soon as the stray dogs started barking at us, we beat a retreat toward the safety of the car.”
“The hikers beat a retreat from the mountain trail when they noticed dark storm clouds and felt the first drops of rain.”
complex
“Realizing that their argument was becoming increasingly irrational, he decided to beat a retreat before the situation escalated into an open confrontation.”
Origin
The phrase originates from the military practice of using a drum to signal a tactical withdrawal. To beat a retreat was to strike the drum in a specific pattern, communicating the order to move back from a position or to return to the safety of a camp. While the drum has largely been retired from the modern battlefield, the verb remains to describe the act of leaving a situation with similar haste.
Key words
Related idioms
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