to beat the band

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to beat the band

To a huge or the greatest possible extent or degree. They've been selling Girl Scout cookies to beat the band ever sense they set up shop right outside. The child started screaming to beat the band when her parents took away her cotton candy.

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to beat the band

very briskly; very fast. He's selling computers to beat the band since he started advertising. She worked to beat the band to get ready for this.

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to beat the band

Also, to beat all. To the greatest possible degree. For example, The baby was crying to beat the band, or The wind is blowing to beat the band, or John is dressed up to beat all. This idiom uses beat in the sense of "surpass." The first term may, according to one theory, allude to a desire to arrive before the musicians who led a parade, so as to see the entire event. Another theory holds that it means "make more noise than (and thereby beat) a loud band." [Colloquial; late 1800s]

See also: band, beat

to beat the band

in such a way as to surpass all competition. North American informal

1995 Patrick McCabe The Dead School He was polishing away to beat the band.

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to beat the band

mod. very hard and very fast. He’s selling computers to beat the band since he started advertising.

See also: band, beat

to beat the band

To an extreme degree.

See also: band, beat

References in periodicals archive ?

There will also be live music, and baked goods to beat the band.

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Then implausibly so how easily we play this squeezebox, step wide & bow to beat the band, so many loves belong to us, our song is a perilous thrust, a pistol really, handheld & in consequence so much easier to aim.

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They have also all come through the ranks as winners, with minor and under-21 medals to beat the band.

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The 110 has performance enough to beat the band, with massive overtaking ability and will still average 47mpg.

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It's just a matter of time before you hear the tat-tat-tattering of hungry chick beaks clicking to beat the band.

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It's like in the '60s, when there were two distinct camps in the boho scene, one of which was Marxist and ideological and political and engaged and humorless to beat the band.

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To down a rogue jet hurtling across the sky, Ireland would have to rely upon an armed officer onboard a surveillance helicopter, brandishing a service revolver and firing away to beat the band.

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She smoldered anew as Constance Weldon Carlyle on the short-lived "Flamingo Road" and smoldered to beat the band as wicked modeling maven Racine in the even shorter-lived "Paper Dolls.

HIGH-INFIDELITY

I'm at an age when, theoretically, my biological clock should be ticking fit to beat the band, yet it remains fixed on mute.