bier

[beer]

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noun

a frame or stand on which a corpse or the coffin containing it is laid before burial.

such a stand together with the corpse or coffin.

Origin of bier

before 900; Middle English bere, Old English bēr, bǣr(e); cognate with Old High German bāra (German Bahre), Dutch, Danish baar, Swedish bår; spelling influenced by French bière; akin to bear¹, barrow¹

Can be confusedbeer bier

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for bier

coffin, pyre, support, grave, catafalque, hearse

Examples from the Web for bier

Contemporary Examples of bier

So they laid her on a bier, and all seven of them sat down beside it and wept and wept for three whole days.
In New Brothers Grimm 'Snow White', The Prince Doesn't Save Her
The Brothers Grimm
November 30, 2014

Historical Examples of bier

Then, one at the head and the other at the feet, they brought the body out, and laid it on the bier.
Heather and Snow
George MacDonald
And it seemed as if a devil whispered to him: 'A solitary couch is itself a bier.
Father Sergius
Leo Tolstoy
One very heavy Indian, who was sick, was carried upon a bier.
King Philip
John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
Half a league from the city the bier was met by all the dignitaries of the place.
Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880
Various
Tom Brandon and five other young men were to carry the bier.
Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times
Charles Carleton Coffin

British Dictionary definitions for bier

bier

noun

a platform or stand on which a corpse or a coffin containing a corpse rests before burial

Word Origin for bier

Old English bǣr; related to beran to bear 1, Old High German bāra bier, Sanskrit bhārá a burden

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for bier

Old English bær (West Saxon), ber (Anglian) "handbarrow, litter, bed," from West Germanic *bero (cf. Old Saxon, Old High German bara, Old Frisian bere, Middle Dutch bare, Dutch baar, German Bahre "bier"), from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry; to bear children," and thus related to the Old English verb beran "to bear" (see bear (v.)), making a bier etymologically anything used for carrying, only later limited to funerary sense. Since c.1600, spelling influenced by French bière, from Old French biere, from Frankish *bera, from the same Germanic root.