Etymologically
Log in

bead

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 15:24. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bede (“prayer; prayer bead”),[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English gebed (“prayer”),[2][3][6][7][8] recorded from about 725,[6] beside a rarer bed and bedu.[3][6][4] The OED notes that Old English bed occurs only in compounds such as bedhūs (“house of prayer”), and that bede may have arisen by the loss of the prefix from gebed in early Middle English;[9][10] Ayto dates that loss to the 13th century.[11] The Old English word goes back to Proto-Germanic *bedō (“prayer, plea”),[12] and is related to Old Saxon gibed, Old High German gibet and its modern descendant German Gebet (“prayer”),[6][2][13] and to Old Frisian bede, Old Saxon beda, Middle Dutch bede, Old High German beta, German Bitte (“request; please”) and Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐌳𐌰 (bida, “prayer, request”).[9][7][10] All belong with Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐌳𐌾𐌰𐌽 (bidjan, “to ask, pray”) and Old English biddan (“to entreat, pray”), the source of bid.[9][2][6][14] Watkins, cited by Etymonline, takes them from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰedʰ- (“to ask, pray”),[7][3] while Barnhart gives *bʰedʰ- (“to bend”).[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Prayer; in the plural, prayers or devotions: in the Old English translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History,[9] and as Middle English bede from about 1175.[6]

Semantic evolution

Prayers were counted on a rosary, a string of small balls, each standing for one prayer, and the word for the prayer passed to the ball that marked it.[15][6][7][13] The OED records this sense from 1377, in Langland's Piers Plowman,[9] and phrases such as to bid a bead, to offer a prayer (from before 1325), and to tell or count one's beads, to say one's prayers (from 1641), kept the link with praying.[9][7] Etymonline compares Spanish cuentas (“beads of a rosary”), from contar (“to count”).[7] From about 1400 a bead was any small pierced ornament of glass, amber, metal or wood strung on a thread,[9][11] and the old sense "prayer" died out by the mid-16th century.[9] The word was then extended to other small round things: a drop of liquid, especially of sweat, from 1598, in Shakespeare's 1 Henry IV,[9][7] and a bubble in spirits or sparkling wine from 1753.[9] In American use a bead was the small knob forming the front sight of a gun, recorded in 1831 in Kentucky slang, whence draw a bead on, to take aim at, from 1841.[7][16] Johnson (1755) still defined beads first as the rosary balls by which Catholics counted their prayers.[17] The old sense lived on in beadsman, one who prays for a benefactor,[18][16] and in northern dialect bead as a verb meant to pray.[19] The verb bead, to adorn with beads, is recorded from 1587;[9] Etymonline dates it to the 1570s and Merriam-Webster to 1577.[7][2]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – Old English gebed, prayer.[6]
  • c. 1175 – Middle English bede, prayer.[6]
  • before 1325 – to bid a bead, to offer a prayer.[9]
  • 1377 – a bead of a rosary.[9]
  • c. 1400 – a small pierced ornamental ball.[9]
  • 1554 – last record of the sense "prayer".[9]
  • 1587 – verb, to adorn with beads.[9]
  • 1598 – a drop of liquid, of sweat.[9][7]
  • 1641 – to tell one's beads, to say one's prayers.[9]
  • 1753 – a bubble in spirits or wine.[9]
  • 1831 – the front sight of a gun.[7]
  • 1841 – draw a bead on, to take aim at.[7]
  • 1873 – verb, to form beads.[9][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small piece of glass, wood, plastic or other material, usually round, with a hole through it so that it can be threaded on a string with others: She restrung the broken necklace bead by bead.[20][2][9]
  2. beads (plural): a necklace of such pieces; a rosary.[2][9]
  3. A small drop of liquid: beads of rain on the window.[20][2][9]
  4. A small bubble in or on a liquid, as in spirits or sparkling wine.[20][9]
  5. A small metal knob forming the front sight of a gun, as in draw a bead on, to take aim at.[20][7]
  6. (architecture) A small rounded moulding.[20][2]
  7. (obsolete) A prayer; in the plural, prayers.[2][9]

Verb

  1. To decorate or cover with beads.[2][9][10]
  2. To string together like beads.[2][10]
  3. To form into beads or drops: Sweat beaded on the runner's forehead.[2][9]

Word family

  • beader
  • beadlike
  • beady
  • beadroll
  • beadsman
  • beadwork

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  13. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  16. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  19. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  20. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins