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y for counting prayers, as by Roman Catholics and Mohammedans, whence the phrases to tell beads, to at one's beads, to bid beads, etc., meaning, to be at prayer.

A degree of strength in alcoholic liquor as shown by beads or small bubbles remaining on its surface, or at the side of the glass, when shaken.

An almshouse for poor people who pray daily for their benefactors.

Molding in imitation of beads.

A messenger or crier of a court; a servitor; one who cites or bids persons to appear and answer; -- called also an apparitor or summoner.

Office or jurisdiction of a beadle.

The state of being, or the personality of, a beadle. A. Wood.

the rest of whose souls a certain number of prayers are to be said or counted off on the beads of a chaplet; hence, a catalogue in general. On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be field. Spenser. It is quite startling, on going over the beadroll of English worthies, to find how few are directly represented in the male…

A poor man, supported in a beadhouse, and required to pray for the soul of its founder; an almsman. Whereby ye shall bind me to be your poor beadsman for ever unto Almighty God. Fuller.

A small poisonous snake of North America (Elaps fulvius), banded with yellow, red, and black.

Fem. of Beadsman.

Ornamental work in beads.

Resembling beads; small, round, and glistening. "Beady eyes." Thackeray.

t of the sun's disk appears momentarily like a row of bright spots resembling a string of beads. The phenomenon (first fully described by Francis Baily, 1774 -- 1844) is thought to be an effect of irradiation, and of inequalities of the moon's edge.

An under beadle.

Applied to a kind of variegated glass beads of ancient manufacture; as, aggry beads are found in Ashantee and Fantee in Africa.

on the seashore in many places. It takes a fine polish, and is used for pipe mouthpieces, beads, etc., and as a basis for a fine varnish. By friction, it becomes strongly electric.

aces of a polygonal or bay window meet. Knight. (b) (Mach.) Same as Angle iron. -- Angle bead (Arch.), a bead worked on or fixed to the angle of any architectural work, esp. for protecting an angle of a wall. -- Angle brace, Angle tie (Carp.), a brace across an interior angle of a wooden frame, forming the hypothenus…

A bead of rough carnelian. Arangoes were formerly imported from Bombay for use in the African slave trade. McCulloch.

Mary, as mother of God; -- used in the Roman Catholic church. To number Ave Maries on his beads. Shak.