kick the beam

Referencing a loaded balance, whose lighter arm would rise up and strike the beam.

kick the beam (third-person singular simple present kicks the beam, present participle kicking the beam, simple past and past participle kicked the beam)

1. (idiomatic, archaic) To lack in weight, importance, or strength compared to another.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 1004-1005:

     The latter quick up flew, and kick'd the beam; / Which Gabriel spying, thus bespake the Fiend.

   • 1846, John Greenleaf Whittier, The Pine-Tree (poem):

     Is the dollar only real? God and truth and right a dream?
     Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick the beam?

   • 1918 March 27, Ian Hay, “America At War”, in The Times:

     To-day she is at war; she has no surplus resources; all her energy is concentrated on herself, and will be until she is ready and equipped for battle. When that happens—when her vast potential energy has been converted into dynamic energy—she will step heavily into that scale of the balance recently vacated by Russia, and Prussian militarism will kick the beam.

• “kick”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.