Other forms: biers
A bier is the stand a coffin rests on before burial. Laid on the bier, carry the bier, beside the bier.
It is the frame rather than the coffin, and church biers were wheeled so one man could move a coffin down an aisle. It is a different word from beer despite sounding identical.
1nounbierThe stand a coffin rests on before burial.
“The coffin rested on a bier in front of the altar during the funeral.”
bier is a stand.
Old English baer means a stretcher or bier, from the same root as bear, to carry.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰer- — to carry, bear
Proto-Germanic
*bērō
Proto-West Germanic
*bāru
Old English
bēr
Middle English
beer
English, today
bier
Built from
From Middle English beer, beere, bere, from Old English bēr, West Saxon bǣr (“stretcher, bier”), from Proto-West Germanic bāru, from Proto-Germanic bērō, from Proto-Indo-European bʰer- (“to carry, bear”). Cognate with stq Beere (“stretcher, bier”), Dutch baar (“bier”), German Bahre (“bier, stretcher”). More at bear.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA