From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishkeep/beat timekeep/beat timeto show the rhythm and speed that a piece of music should be played at to a group of musicians, using your hands → time
Examples from the Corpus
keep/beat time• The lord began to tap his foot and beat time with his hand against his thigh.• At one stage, he joined her, pacing with her, beating time with one hand.• In employment systems, after all, people are not mustered to play together as their manager beats time.• It is not true that elsewhere they obey it without beating it, since one beats time wherever choruses are sung.• It starts lean and mean, just a slash of overdriven guitar with tambourine keeping time.• Tidy time keep time on your side and all your bills in order with this hand clip clock.• They are likened by Leibniz to a series of clocks that manage to keep time without being connected.• They were often unable to keep time to within fifteen minutes a day and were frequently out of order. 