1to show the rhythm and speed that a piece of music should be played at to a group of musicians, using your hands 〔用手〕打着节拍
Examples from the Corpus
keep/beat time• The lord began to tap his foot and beat time with his hand against his thigh.• At one stage, he joined her, pacing with her, beating time with one hand.• In employment systems, after all, people are not mustered to play together as their managerbeats time.• It is not true that elsewhere they obey it without beating it, since one beats time wherever choruses are sung.• It starts lean and mean, just a slash of overdrivenguitar with tambourinekeeping time.• Tidy time keep time on your side and all your bills in order with this hand clipclock.• They are likened by Leibniz to a series of clocks that manage to keep time without being connected.• They were often unable to keep time to within fifteen minutes a day and were frequently out of order.
2if a clock keeps good time, it always shows the correct time 〔钟表〕走得很准
Examples from the Corpus
keep perfect/good etc time• Nothing unusual - clocks behaving as before, keeping good time and continuing to emit their light beams.• Running in a clump through a crowdedstation, like the Bash Street Kids, keeping perfect time with chant and clap.• But like a single gear in a mechanical clock, timeless can not keep good time all by itself.