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Glite Dictionary
beat combo

beat combo

1 6.5
A small band that plays rhythm music for dancing
  • noun
  • Archaic
translation icon : grupo de música
  • Maybe we could put these two into a little beat combo.

Examples

  • During the festival, we enjoyed a beat combo performing classic hits from the 1960s.

  • The club hired a local beat combo to entertain the guests with lively dance music.

  • The small beat combo played all night, getting everyone on the dance floor.

Synonyms

combo
vsbeat combo
11 4.0

A small group of musicians who play jazz or popular music

is a small group focused on dance rhythm and 1960s British style

Surface Forms

beat combo singular
beat combos plural

Morphology

beat + combo

The meaning is directly compositional: 'beat' (rhythm) modifies 'combo' (a small band), so 'beat combo' naturally denotes a small band that plays rhythm/dance music. This noun + noun/attributive pattern is transparent and common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would likely infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Beat combo comes from two simple ideas: beat means the rhythm you dance to and combo means a small group of players. In the 1960s, small bands that played strong rhythms in clubs were called beat combos, so the phrase came to mean 'a small, rhythm-focused band'.