bead-roll
(ˈbiːdrəʊl)
Also 6–8 bed-, 6– bede-.
[f. bead n. + roll n.]
† 1. orig. A list of persons to be specially prayed for. Obs. or arch.
| c 1500 Fabyan Will in Chron. Pref. 6 The soules above written, may be remembred in their parisshe bede rolle by the whole space of a yere after. 1504 in Bury Wills (1850) 100 A sangred to be payed for in the bedroule for my soule..by the space of a yeer. 1528 Tindale Obed. Chr. Man. To Rdr., Here a mass-penny, there a trental, yonder dirige-money, and for his bead-roll. 1849 Rock Ch. of Fathers II. vii. 355 Those souls of the dead whose names were written upon the bead-roll just read out. |
2. transf. A list or string of names; a catalogue; a long line, a pedigree; a long series.
| 1529 More Supplic. Soules Wks. 289/1 This he laith to y⊇ onely fault of the cleargie, naming them in his bederolle, bishops, abbottes, etc. 1596 Spenser F.Q. iv. ii. 32 Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, On fames eternall bead⁓roll worthie to be fyled. 1603 Florio Montaigne iii. viii. (1632) 523 A man..who..doth nothing but molest all men with the impertinent bed-rowle and register of his pedigrees. 1607 Heywood Wom. Kilde Wks. 1874 II. 115 'Rac'd from the bed-roll of Gentility. 1612 Drayton Poly-olb. xxii. (1748) 346 Wakefield battle next we in our bedroul bring. 1644 Quarles Judgm. & Mercy 286 The devil presents me with a bead-roll of my offences. 1826 Scott in Lockhart (1839) VIII. 322 A whole beadroll of cousins. 1868 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1876) II. viii. 218 The long bead-roll of the worthies of Bec. 1884 Symonds Shaks. Predecess. v. 191 The whole bede roll of inferior oracles. |
3. A string of beads for counting prayers; a rosary.
| 1598 Hakluyt I. 115 A certaine string with an hundreth or two hundreth nutshels thereupon, much like to our bead⁓roule. 1816 Coleridge Lay Serm. 341 Superstition..with its pack of amulets, bead-rolls..fetisches. 1819 Wordsw. Waggoner ii. 9 Twelve strokes that clock would have been telling..Its bead-roll of midnight. 1866 Mrs. Stowe Lit. Foxes 22 Let us all make a bead-roll, a holy rosary, of all that is good and agreeable in our position..and charge ourselves to repeat it daily. |