Offbeat

//ˈɒfbiːt// adj, noun, slang

adj, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The beats not normally accented in a measure.

    "The congregation clapped along on the offbeat."

  2. 2
    an unaccented beat (especially the last beat of a measure) wordnet
  3. 3
    An unconventional person, someone who does not follow the beat, who chooses not to conform. slang

    "No one dignified such offbeats by responding to their outcries. Today, the "knockers of progress" have become a force that cannot be ignored."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Unusual; unconventional; not ordinary.

    "He has such an offbeat sense of humor that hardly anyone finds his jokes amusing."

Adjective
  1. 1
    (informal) strikingly unconventional wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
far outupbeataberrantabnormalalienanomalous

Antonyms

All antonyms
proper

Example

More examples

"The congregation clapped along on the offbeat."

Etymology

From off- + beat; not following the beat (e.g., of a drum that sounds out cadence).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.