bead, beade, bede, bed

[A.S. bed, gebed a prayer. In Dut. bede; Ger. bitte; Low Ger. bede, bete, be the, all meaning, not a bead, but a prayer. From the Roman Catholic practice of counting off a bead upon a rosary when one of a series of prayers has been offered, the word has obtained its modern meaning of a perforated ball.] A. Ordinary Language: * I. Prayer. "And also it is ordeynede, yat yis bede and preyer shal bene reherside and seyde at euery tyme yat ye alderman and ye bretheren bene togedere."- English Gilds (Ear. Eng . Text Soc.), p. 23. II. One of a number of small globular bodies of gla , coral, metal, or other material, perforated so as to be hung on a string. Specially 1. Those for keeping count of prayers offered. [See etym.] These are strung thirty or sixty together. Every tenth one is larger and more embellished than the rest; it is called a gaude. The gaudes are used for counting paternosters, and the ordinary beads for Ave Marias. [GAUDE.] "Ere yet, in in scorn of Peter's pence, And number'd bead , and shrift." Tennyson: The Talking Oak. To bid one's beads: To say one's prayers, specially when use is made of beads to keep count of them. [BID.] "Bidding his beades all day for his trespas." Spenser: F. Q., L. 1. 30. as will appear by the form of bidding the beads in King Henry the Seventh's time. The way was first for the preacher to name and open his text, and then to call on the people to go to their prayers, and to tell them what they they were to to pray for; after which all the people said their beads in a general silence, and the minister kneeled down also and said his."-Burnet: Hist. Reformat ., bk. 1., pt. ii., an. 1547. To tell one's beads: To number one's beads for the purpose of numbering one's prayers; (le specifically ) to be at prayer. "The wits of modern time had told their beads, And monkish legends been their only strains." Thomson: Castle of Indolence , ii. 52. 2. Those worn round the necks of children, of women, and in the East of men, for ornament. "With scarfs and fans, and double change of brav'ry, With amber bracelets, beads , and all such knav'ry." Shakesp.: Taming of Shrew, iv. 8. III. Anything artificial or natural resembling a bead in its globularity, even if it differ in being imperforate; as, for instance, those gla globules which, before the abolition of the slave trade, were used in bartering with the natives of Africa. 1. Artificial. [See B., 1, and BEAD-PROOF.] 2. Natural. [See the examples.] "Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war, And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep, That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow." Shakesp.: 1 Hen . IV ., ii. 3. "Several yellow lumps of amber, almost like beads , with one side flat, had fastened themselves to the bottom."-Boyle. B. Technically : IMG:content-1142.png:[blocks in formation] 471: a guide for the sash. There are inside, outside, and parting beads. Bead and butt ( Carp .): Framing in which the pearls are flush, having beads stuck or run upon the two edges. Bead and quirk : A bead stuck upon the edge of a piece of stuff flush with its surface. 5. Astronomy. Baily's Beads. [Named after Francis Baily, an English man, who discovered them during the solar eclipse of 1836. ( Мет . Astron. Soc., vol. x.).] Certain luminous bead-like prom i nences aces arranged in a curved line round the margin of the moon's disk upon that of the sun towards the commencement and towards the close of complete BAILY'S BEADS. obscuration in a total or annular eclipse of the latter luminary. Once attributed to the projection of a range of lunar mountains on the face of the sun, they are now supposed to proceed from irradiation.