beat the air

Also, beat the wind. Continue to make futile attempts, fight to no purpose. For example, The candidates for office were so much alike that we thought our vote amounted to beating the air . These phrases call up a vivid image of someone flailing away at nothing. [Late 1300s]

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Tineke	-	Dutch
Cassie	KAS-ee	English
Fuat	-	Turkish
Tiberius	ti-BE-ri-uws	Ancient Roman
Viktor	VIK-tawr (German), VEEK-tahr (Russian)	Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, German, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Russian, Ukraini
Androcles	AN-drə-kleez (English)	Ancient Greek (Latinized)