Other forms: beads
A bead is a small ball threaded on a string, or a drop of liquid. Glass beads, beads of sweat, a string of beads.
The word came from prayer: a bede was a prayer, and the balls on a rosary were counted as prayers said until the name transferred to the object. To draw a bead on something is to aim at it, from the small sight on a gun barrel.
1nounbeadA small ball threaded on a string.
“She threaded tiny glass beads onto a string to make a necklace.”
2noundropA drop of liquid.
“Beads of sweat ran down his face as he waited for the result.”
bead is a small ball, or a drop.
Old English gebed means a prayer. The balls on a rosary took the name from the prayers counted on them.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷʰedʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*bedō
Proto-West Germanic
*bedu
Old English
bedu
Middle English
bede — a prayer
English, today
bead
Built from
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 stq Gebäd (“prayer”), cim gapéet (“prayer”), Dutch gebed and bede (“prayer”), German Gebet (“prayer”), Low German Gebett (“prayer”), lb Gebiet (“prayer”), wym gybāt (“prayer”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA