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obtuse [obtuse 词源字典]: obtuse: [16] The etymological meaning of obtuse is ‘beaten down, blunted’. It comes from Latin obtūsus, the past participle of obtundere, a compound verb formed from the prefix ob- ‘against’ and tundere ‘beat’ (source of English contusion and related to toil). The notion of being ‘dulled’ or ‘blunted’ led to its being used for ‘having dulled wits, stupid’, and the idea of bluntness also lies behind its geometrical use for an angle of more than 90 degrees (as contrasted with the ‘sharp’ acute angle).
=> contusion, toil[obtuse etymology, obtuse origin, 英语词源]
profligate: profligate: [16] Something that is profligate has etymologically been ‘beaten down’ to a state of ruination or degradation. The word was adapted from Latin prōflīgātus ‘destroyed, dissolute’, an adjective based on the past participle of prōflīgāre ‘beat down, destroy’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix prō- ‘forward’ (used here in the sense ‘down’) and flīgere ‘hit’ (source also of English afflict, conflict [15], and inflict [16]).
=> afflict, conflict, inflict
rebate: rebate: [15] A rebate is etymologically an amount that has been ‘re-abated’. The word, originally a verb, comes from Old French rabattre ‘beat down again’, hence ‘reduce’, a compound formed from the prefix re- ‘again’ and abattre ‘beat down’ (source of English abate [13], and also of abattoir [19], euphemistically a place where animals are ‘beaten down’ or killed). This in turn went back to Vulgar Latin *abbattuere, a compound verb formed from the prefix ad- ‘completely’ and battuere ‘beat’ (source of English battle, combat, etc).
=> abate, abattoir, battle, combat
beatnik (n.): coined 1958 by San Francisco newspaper columnist Herb Caen during the heyday of -nik suffixes in the wake of Sputnik. From Beat generation (1952), associated with beat (n.) in its meaning "rhythm (especially in jazz)" as well as beat (past participle adjective) "worn out, exhausted," but originator Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) in 1958 connected it with beatitude.
The origins of the word beat are obscure, but the meaning is only too clear to most Americans. More than the feeling of weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of nakedness of the mind. ["New York Times Magazine," Oct. 2, 1952]

"Beat" is old carny slang. According to Beat Movement legend (and it is a movement with a deep inventory of legend), Ginsberg and Kerouac picked it up from a character named Herbert Huncke, a gay street hustler and drug addict from Chicago who began hanging around Times Square in 1939 (and who introduced William Burroughs to heroin, an important cultural moment). The term has nothing to do with music; it names the condition of being beaten down, poor, exhausted, at the bottom of the world. [Louis Menand, "New Yorker," Oct. 1, 2007]
mat (adj.): 1640s, "lusterless, dull" (of a color or surface), from French mat "dull, dead surface," from Old French mat "beaten down, withered, afflicted, dejected; dull," which is perhaps from Latin mattus "maudlin with drink," from madere "to be wet or sodden, be drunk," from PIE root *mad- "to be wet, drip" (see mast (n.2)). Or the French word might represent a transferred use from chess of mater "to checkmate, defeat," from Arabic (see mate (v.2)).