beamed

Beamed is the past tense and past participle of the verb beam. It commonly describes the act of projecting or emitting a directed stream of light, energy, or particles, or the act of sending something by a beam, such as a laser beam or particle beam.

The term originates from the noun beam, with roots in older forms of the word meaning a long, straight piece of timber. The verb senses evolved to include directing, radiating, or transmitting through a beam. Beamed can be used in technical contexts as well as everyday language. In informal usage, "beamed" can describe a person whose face shows a broad, pleased smile (as in "she beamed with happiness"), though the present participle "beaming" is more common for ongoing states.

In science and engineering, beamed appears in phrases such as "a beam of electrons," "the laser beam," "beamed power," or "shielding against a particle beam." In communications and popular culture, "to beam" has been used to denote transmitting or broadcasting via directed beams (for example, microwaves), and in fiction it may refer to teleportation by a beam.

See also

Beam (disambiguation); Beaming (smile); Beam (physics/engineering).