<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>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.</li><li>beads, a necklace of beads: You don't have your beads on this evening.</li><li>a rosary.</li><li>Obsolete: devotions; prayers.</li><li>any small globular or cylindrical body.</li><li>a drop of liquid: beads of moisture.</li><li>Synonyms: dot, blob, globule, droplet.</li><li>a bubble rising through effervescent liquid.</li><li>Usually beads: a mass of such bubbles on the surface of a liquid.</li><li>the front sight of a rifle or gun.</li><li>a reinforced area of a rubber tire terminating the sidewall and fitting within the rim of a wheel.</li><li>Electricity: a glass, ceramic, or plastic insulator that contains and supports the inner conductor in a coaxial cable.</li><li>Chemistry: 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.</li><li>Metallurgy: the rounded mass of refined metal obtained by cupellation.</li><li>Architecture, Furniture: a small molding having a convex circular section and, usually, a continuous cylindrical surface; astragal.</li><li>Welding: a continuous deposit of fused metal, either straight stringer bead or zigzag weave bead.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb (used with object)</strong></p><ul><li>to form or cause to form beads or a bead on.</li><li>to ornament with beads.</li><li>Carpentry: to form a bead on (a piece).</li></ul><p><strong>Verb (used without object)</strong></p><ul><li>to form beads; form in beads or drops: perspiration beading on his forehead.</li></ul>