to beat the band
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to do something very loudly or enthusiastically
Literally: to play music louder than a band
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
‘ Thank you for a super time,’ she offered sincerely as she waited for the lift to arrive — and felt her heart race to beat the band when, all male dark eyes stared down at her.
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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “to beat the band” mean?
to do something very loudly or enthusiastically Literally: to play music louder than a band
Is “to beat the band” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.