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Glite Dictionary
to beat the bishop

to beat the bishop

9.9
To touch your own private parts to make yourself sexually excited
  • idiom
  • Offensive
translation icon : hacerse una paja
  • Don't disturb me; I'm just beating the bishop.

Examples

  • He made a crude joke about needing to beat the bishop before his date.

  • In the locker room, the guys laughed about who had last beat the bishop.

  • According to the story, he would quietly beat the bishop when no one was around.

  • He likes to beat the bishop when he is alone.

  • He joked that he needed some time alone to beat the bishop before going out.

  • The comedian's routine included a funny story about how he would beat the bishop while trying to relax.

  • After a long day, he felt the need to beat the bishop to relieve some stress.

Synonyms

to jerk off
vsto beat the bishop
  • Offensive
30 9.9

To touch your own private parts to get sexual pleasure

softens that tone by framing it as a humorous slang phrase
jerking off
vsto beat the bishop
  • Offensive
19 9.9

To touch your own penis to get sexual pleasure

keeps a playful tone rather than the blunt vulgarity of this term
to jack off
vsto beat the bishop
  • Offensive
8 9.9

To touch your own private parts to get sexual pleasure, usually by a man

is joking and humorous rather than crude or purely offensive
wank
vsto beat the bishop
  • Offensive
5 9.9

An act of touching your own private parts to get sexual pleasure

is a humorous slang term used more broadly than regional forms
to flog the dolphin
vsto beat the bishop
  • Offensive
1 9.9

To touch your own penis to make yourself sexually excited

is similarly playful but often more broadly humorous in tone
to beating his meat
vsto beat the bishop
  • Offensive
1 9.9

To touch a man's penis to get sexual pleasure

uses a joking slang tone rather than coarse or offensive words
to choke the chicken
vsto beat the bishop
  • Offensive
9.9

To touch a man's penis to make him sexually excited

is more lighthearted and broadly humorous rather than mocking
to beat one's meat
vsto beat the bishop
  • Offensive
9.9

To touch his own penis to feel sexual pleasure

keeps a humorous, less blunt style instead of crude wording
to spank it
vsto beat the bishop
  • Offensive
9.9

Touch your own private parts to get pleasure

is more overtly humorous and less likely to sound crude

Surface Forms

beat the bishop infinitive
beat the bishop past
beat the bishop past participle
beating the bishop present participle
beats the bishop third person singular

Morphology

beat + the + bishop

The slang meaning 'to masturbate' has no predictable connection to the literal constituents 'beat' (to strike/defeat) and 'bishop' (a church official). This is a culturally specific, metaphorical sexual idiom, so a B1 learner who knows the individual words would not reliably infer the intended meaning without prior exposure.

Etymology

The slang beat the bishop comes from a crude joke. One popular story says beat shows the repeated hand movement and bishop was a joking name for a man's private part, so the image came to mean 'to masturbate'.