bead
/ˈbiːd/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.44 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "That he must believe in the Pope;—go to Mass;—cross himself;—tell his beads;—be a good Catholick, and that this, in all conscience, was enough to carry him to heaven."
- "Holonym: prayer beads"
- "Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads."
- "beads of sweat"
- "She drew a bead on the target and fired."
- "But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶[…]The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window[…], and a 'bead' could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the fogger behind the hedge, little dreaming that the deadly tube was levelled at them."
Etymology
From Middle English bede (“a prayer”), also “a bead for counting prayers” in a peire of bedes (literally “a pair of beads”), from Old English bedu, bed, ġebed (“a request, entreaty, prayer”), from Proto-West Germanic *bedu, *bed, *gabed, from Proto-Germanic *bedō, *bedą. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Gebäd (“prayer”), Cimbrian gapéet (“prayer”), Dutch gebed and bede (“prayer”), German Gebet (“prayer”), Low German Gebett (“prayer”), Luxembourgish Gebiet (“prayer”), Vilamovian gybāt (“prayer”).