beat as one

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /biːt əz ˈwɒn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bit əz ˈwʌn/

• Audio (General Australian):

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beat as one (third-person singular simple present beats as one, present participle beating as one, simple past beat as one, past participle beaten as one or beat as one)

1. (idiomatic, especially of hearts) To share the same feelings.
   • 1851 August, “N. P. W.”, “A Love Letter, Supposed to have been Written for the ‘Home Journal’”, in Henry Bacon, editor, The Ladies’ Repository, volume XX, Boston, Mass.: Published by A. Tompkins, 38 Cornhill, published 1852, →OCLC, page 63, column 2:

     Thou, too, delightest in the freshness and the bloom; thine eye follows and answers mine in its admiration of the beautiful, and our hearts beat as one to the music and gladness of nature.

   • 1867 December 14, “Match-making”, in The Round Table: A Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Society, and Art, volume VI, number 151, New York, N.Y.: The Round Table Association, 132 Nassau Street, →OCLC, page 393:

     It is all very fine to talk about love in a cottage, two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one, and all that sort of thing; but in any cottage that love wouldn't turn up his nose at there is very substantial rent to pay, and, even waiving the usual contingences, at least two mouths to be filled, that the most perfect singleness of thought, the most thorough union of hearts, can never make one.

   • [1890?], W[illiam] C[owper] Prime, “The Cross is Lost”, in Holy Cross: A History of the Invention, Preservation, and Disappearance of the Wood Known as the True Cross, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, Crown Buildings, 188 Fleet Street, →OCLC, page 111:

     The Deus vult of the crusaders was no longer uttered with one voice from hearts beating as one. The Allah Khbur of the Saracens was the utterance of faith that was firm unto death.

   • 2002, Elissa Kyle, My Soul to Keep: A Collection of Short Stories from the Heart, page 33:

     Their hearts had once beaten as one. How was it possible that she could still be here if her sister was not?

   • 2009, Helen Schucman, A Course in Miracles:

     Two voices raised together call to the hearts of everyone and let them beat as one. And in that single heart beat is the unity of love proclaimed and given welcome.

   • 2012, Randal S. Chase, New Testament Study Guide, Pt. 2:

     It was one of those rare and seldom-experienced times when the disciples of the Lord are perfectly united, when every heart beats as one, and when the same Spirit burns in every bosom. . . .

   • 2014, Holly Newhouse, The Twin Souls:

     Their souls will yearn to beat as one, once again and this can only be done by the sealing of the bond.

   • 2015 September 15, Toby Fox, Undertale, Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X:

     Asriel: Right now, I can feel everyone's hearts beating as one. They're all burning with the same desire.

• as one