Bead

This is from an on-line dictionary

BEAD

NOUN: 1a. A small, often round piece of material, such as glass, plastic, or wood, that is pierced for stringing or threading.
  1b. beads A necklace made of such pieces.
  1c. beads Roman Catholic Church A rosary.
  1d. Obsolete A prayer. Often used in the plural.

2. A small, round object, especially:
  2a. A drop of moisture: beads of sweat.
  2b. A bubble of gas in a liquid.
  2c. A small metal knob on the muzzle of a firearm, such as a rifle, used for sighting.

3. A strip of material, usually wood, with one molded edge placed flush against the inner part of a door or window frame.

4. Architecture
  4a. A decoration consisting of a usually continuous series of small spherical shapes, as on a convex molding.
  4b. Beading.

5. A projecting rim or lip, as on a pneumatic tire.
6. A line of continuously applied ductile material, such as solder or caulking compound.
7. Chemistry A globule of fused borax or other flux used in a bead test.

TRANSITIVE & INTRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: bead·ed, bead·ing, beads - To furnish with or collect into beads.
IDIOM: draw (or get) a bead on To take careful aim at.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English bede, rosary bead, prayer, from Old English bed, bedu, gebed, prayer.

Indo-European Roots
ENTRY: gwhedh- DEFINITION: To ask, pray. 1. Suffixed form *gwhedh-yo-. bid, from Old English biddan, to ask, pray, from Germanic *bidjan, to pray, entreat. 2. bead, from Old English bed(u), gebed, prayer (ge-, intensive and collective prefix; see kom), from Germanic *bidam, entreaty. 3. Suffixed form *gwhedh-to-. infest, manifest, from Latin -festus, probably in nfestus, hostile (< *-gwhedh-to-, “inexorable”; *-, not; see ne), and perhaps in manifestus, caught in the act, red-handed (manus, hand; see man-2). (Pokorny ghedh- 488, 2. bhedh- 114.)