beat the clock
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Complete a task before a deadline expires
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Hoàn thành nhiệm vụ trước khi thời hạn kết thúc
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: defeat the time-keeping device
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Sometimes I wake early to beat the clock.
Hewlett - Packard Co has managed to beat the clock on delivering its new single - chip 7100-based workstations.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “beat the clock” mean?
Complete a task before a deadline expires Literally: defeat the time-keeping device
Is “beat the clock” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.