beat vs trail

beat

verb
  • To tread, as a path. 

  • simple past tense of beat 

  • To rob. 

  • To indicate by beating or drumming. 

  • To win against; to defeat or overcome; to do or be better than (someone); to excel in a particular, competitive event. 

  • To sound with more or less rapid alternations of greater and lesser intensity, so as to produce a pulsating effect; said of instruments, tones, or vibrations not perfectly in unison. 

  • To exercise severely; to perplex; to trouble. 

  • To make a sound when struck. 

  • To sail to windward using a series of alternate tacks across the wind. 

  • To strike or pound repeatedly, usually in some sort of rhythm. 

  • To strike (water, foliage etc.) in order to drive out game; to travel through (a forest etc.) for hunting. 

  • To hit; to strike. 

  • To mix food in a rapid fashion. Compare whip. 

  • To make a succession of strokes on a drum. 

  • To move with pulsation or throbbing. 

  • To strike repeatedly; to inflict repeated blows; to knock vigorously or loudly. 

  • To have sexual intercourse. 

  • To arrive at a place before someone. 

  • To persuade the seller to reduce a price. 

  • To be in agitation or doubt. 

adj
  • Ugly. 

  • Having impressively attractive makeup. 

  • Boring. 

  • Exhausted. 

  • Relating to the Beat Generation. 

  • Dilapidated, beat up. 

noun
  • A short pause in a play, screenplay, or teleplay, for dramatic or comedic effect. 

  • A beatnik. 

  • A pulse on the beat level, the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic unit. Thus a beat is the basic time unit of a piece. 

  • The route patrolled by a police officer or a guard. 

  • The primary focus of a reporter's stories (such as police/courts, education, city government, business etc.). 

  • A rhythm. 

  • The rhythm signalled by a conductor or other musician to the members of a group of musicians. 

  • A pulsation or throb. 

  • A makeup look; compare beat one's face. 

  • A stroke; a blow. 

  • The instrumental portion of a piece of hip-hop music. 

  • The act of scouring, or ranging over, a tract of land to rouse or drive out game; also, those so engaged, collectively. 

  • A smart tap on the adversary's blade. 

  • The interference between two tones of almost equal frequency 

  • A precinct. 

trail

verb
  • To create a trail in. 

  • To show a trailer of (a film, TV show etc.); to release or publish a preview of (a report etc.) in advance of the full publication. 

  • To run or climb like certain plants. 

  • To be losing, to be behind in a competition. 

  • To leave (a trail of). 

  • To carry (a firearm) with the breech near the ground and the upper part inclined forward, the piece being held by the right hand near the middle. 

  • To transport (livestock) by herding it along a trail. 

  • To hang or drag loosely behind; to move with a slow sweeping motion. 

  • To follow behind (someone or something); to tail (someone or something). 

  • To drag oneself lazily or reluctantly along. 

  • To travel by following or creating trails. 

  • To drag (something) behind on the ground. 

noun
  • A trailer broadcast on television for a forthcoming film or programme. 

  • The track or indication marking the route followed by something that has passed, such as the footprints of animal on land or the contrail of an airplane in the sky. 

  • A walk in which all the edges are distinct. 

  • A route for travel over land, especially a narrow, unpaved pathway for use by hikers, horseback riders, etc. 

  • A route or circuit generally. 

  • The horizontal distance from where the wheel touches the ground to where the steering axis intersects the ground. 

How often have the words beat and trail occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )