Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A brief high-pitched sound, as from an electronic device.
  • intransitive verb To emit a bleep or bleeps.
  • intransitive verb To edit out (spoken material) from a broadcast or recording, especially by replacing with an electronic sound.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun a short high-pitched tone produced as a signal or warning.
  • transitive verb (Broadcasting) to to obscure or replace (an offensive word or phrase) by substituting a beeping sound while broadcasting.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A brief high-pitched sound, as from some electronic device.
  • noun euphemistic Something named by an explicit noun in the original, unedited version of the containing sentence.
  • noun music, slang, uncountable A broad genre of electronic music with goth and industrial influences, as opposed to traditional gothic rock.
  • verb intransitive To emit one or more bleeps.
  • verb transitive To edit out inappropriate spoken language in a broadcast by replacing offending words with bleeps.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb emit a single short high-pitched signal
  • noun a short high tone produced as a signal or warning

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Imitative.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Onomatopoeic

Support

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Examples

  • You see, my [bleep] - ing [bleep] is considerably larger than my [bleep] - ing brain.

    Archive 2004-04-01 M-mv 2004

  • You see, my [bleep] - ing [bleep] is considerably larger than my [bleep] - ing brain.

    03.04 M-mv 2004

  • You see, my [bleep] - ing [bleep] is considerably larger than my [bleep] - ing brain.

    03.04 M-mv 2004

  • You see, my [bleep] - ing [bleep] is considerably larger than my [bleep] - ing brain.

    More quotable Ebert M-mv 2004

  • You see, my [bleep] - ing [bleep] is considerably larger than my [bleep] - ing brain.

    03.04 M-mv 2004

  • You see, my [bleep] - ing [bleep] is considerably larger than my [bleep] - ing brain.

    03.04 M-mv 2004

  • That might explain why on a recent weeknight more than three-quarters of the hit tracks played on KISS 107. 1's (WKFS-FM) 'Freak Show' ( 'The only show worth a bleep' is its slogan.) between 7 and 8 p.m. featured at least three or more edits.

    Boing Boing: March 9, 2003 - March 15, 2003 Archives 2003

  • When this was done deliberately to expunge an expletive, it was called a bleep.

    The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004

  • When this was done deliberately to expunge an expletive, it was called a bleep.

    The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004

  • We have lately enriched our vocabularies in this area, too, with the word bleep (bleeping), which has replaced earlier blank, blankety-blank, not to mention s.o.b. and the like.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol IV No 1 1977

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