beat someone's time

English

Verb

beat someone's time (third-person singular simple present beats someone's time, present participle beating someone's time, simple past beat someone's time, past participle beaten someone's time or (colloquial) beat someone's time)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see beat,‎ time.
2. (informal, usually with with) To make advances toward someone's romantic partner.

   He was trying to beat my time with my girl.

   • 1899, Felix E. Alley, "Ballad of Kidder Cole", in Roaming the Mountains with John A. Parris, John Parris, 1955

     I was to dance with Kidder the livelong night / But got my time beat by Charley Wright. / If I ever have to have a fight / I hope it will be with Charley Wright; / For he was the ruin of my soul / When he beat my time with Kidder Cole / (missing stanzas including one about Kidder going to South Carolina) / But she came back the following spring / And oh, how I made my banjo ring; / It helped me get my spirit right, / To beat the time of Charley Wright.

   • 1949, Hearst's International Combined with Cosmopolitan‎^[1], volume 126:

     There's a hat-check girl at that cafe — a droopy, fat little blonde — who's trying to beat my time with him. And he's falling for it, the poor baby!

   • 2016, Carolyn Brown, Nicole Helm, Hell, Yeah / Outlaw Cowboy‎^[2]:

     He said if Travis don't hurry up he's goin' to beat his time with you. We all got bets laid as to which one will get you to go on a real date first.