beta

The second letter of the Greek alphabet (Β, β), preceded by alpha (Α, α) and followed by gamma, (Γ, γ). In modern Greek it represents the voiced labiodental fricative sound of v found in the English words have and vase.countableuncountable

An academic grade better than a gamma and worse than an alpha.countablerareuncountable

• But let me tell you happy extroverts that only Vera Telfer and H. A. C. Evans got even an alpha minus; only T. E. Hendrie got a beta plus […]
• Mr Taylor would hardly give a beta minus to one of his history students […]

Average sensitivity of a security's price to overall securities market prices.countableuncountable

• An inspection of the results indicate that Property Trusts is the lowest risk industry with a long-run beta of 0.4520 while Gold is the highest risk industry with a long-run beta of 1.5229.

The phase of development after alpha testing and before launch, in which software, while not complete, has been released to potential users for testing.uncountable

• The company is offering a public beta program to test the software.

Software in such a phase; a preliminary version.countable

• He quickly deduced our goal—ship a quality beta—but he also quickly discerned that we had no idea about the quality of the product because of our pile of untriaged bugs.
• We will assume you got the .tgz version—later 2.x series versions such as 2.5.2 or 2.6.0 should be okay, provided they are production releases (not alphas, betas, or release candidates).

Any kind of content from early development that was not used in the final product.proscribeduncountable

• beta levels; beta characters; beta items in a video game

Information about a route which may aid someone in climbing it.countableuncountable

A beta particle or beta ray.countableuncountable

Sideslip angle.countableuncountable

The range of engine power settings in which the blade pitch angle of a constant-speed propeller is controlled directly by the angle of the engine's throttle lever (rather than varying with engine torque and airspeed to maintain a constant propeller RPM), allowing the propeller to be disked to generacountableuncountable

Identifying a molecular position in an organic chemical compound.not-comparable

Designates the second in an order of precedence.not-comparable

Preliminary; prerelease. Refers to an incomplete version of a product released for initial testing.not-comparable

Associated with the beta male/female archetype.not-comparable

To preliminarily release computer software for initial testing prior to final release.

To beta-read a text.Internet

• 1999, sqira a., in alt.tv.x-files.creative http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.x-files.creative/msg/29d32d27e61755f2?dmode=source My thanks to Heather; who read it and betaed it. Thank you.

a term of endearment, used towards someone of equal or lower standing such as a friend or child, similar to brother or sonHinglishIndiaNorth

• Don't pick that up, beta, it's dirty.