— beadlike , adj.
/beed/ , n.
1. a small, usually round object of glass, wood, stone, or the like with a hole through it, often strung with others of its kind in necklaces, rosaries, etc.
2. beads ,
a. a necklace of beads: You don't have your beads on this evening.
b. a rosary.
c. Obs. devotions; prayers.
3. any small globular or cylindrical body.
4. a drop of liquid: beads of moisture.
5. a bubble rising through effervescent liquid.
6. Usually, beads . a mass of such bubbles on the surface of a liquid.
7. the front sight of a rifle or gun.
8. a reinforced area of a rubber tire terminating the sidewall and fitting within the rim of a wheel. See illus. under tire .
9. Elect. a glass, ceramic, or plastic insulator that contains and supports the inner conductor in a coaxial cable.
10. Chem. a globule of borax or some other flux, supported on a platinum wire, in which a small amount of some substance is heated in a flame as a test for its constituents.
11. Metall. the rounded mass of refined metal obtained by cupellation.
12. Archit. , Furniture. a small molding having a convex circular section and, usually, a continuous cylindrical surface; astragal.
13. Welding. a continuous deposit of fused metal, either straight (stringer bead) or zigzag (weave bead) .
14. count, say , or tell one's beads , to say one's prayers, using rosary beads: There were a few old women counting their beads in the hushed silence of the chapel.
15. draw or get a bead on , to take careful aim at: The marksman drew a bead on his target.
v.t.
16. to form or cause to form beads or a bead on.
17. to ornament with beads.
18. Carpentry. to form a bead on (a piece).
v.i.
19. to form beads; form in beads or drops: perspiration beading on his forehead.
[ bef. 900; ME bede prayer, prayer bead (where, on a rosary each bead symbolizes a prayer, the word for the notion symbolized was transferred to the designating object), OE gebed prayer; akin to BID 1 , G Gebet ]
Syn. 4. droplet, globule, blob, dot.