Adjacent Words

Bier definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

BIER, n. [L. feretrum, from fero. See Bear.]
A carriage or frame of wood for conveying dead human bodies to the
grave.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a coffin along with its stand; "we followed the bier to the graveyard"
2: a stand to support a corpse or a coffin prior to burial

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: Middle English bere, from Old English b?r; akin to Old English beran to carry — more at bear Date: before 12th century 1. archaic a framework for carrying 2. a stand on which a corpse or coffin is placed; also a coffin together with its stand

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. a movable frame on which a coffin or a corpse is placed, or taken to a grave. Etymology: OE ber f. Gmc

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Bier Bier, n. [OE. b[ae]e, beere, AS. b?r, b?re; akin to D. baar, OHG. b[=a]ra, G. bahre, Icel barar, D? baare, L. feretrum, Gr. ?, from the same ?? bear to produce. See 1st Bear, and cf. Barrow.] 1. A handbarrow or portable frame on which a corpse is placed or borne to the grave. 2. (Weaving) A count of forty threads in the warp or chain of woolen cloth. --Knight.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

the frame on which dead bodies were conveyed to the grave (Luke 7:14).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

ber:

(1) Found in the Old Testament only in 2Sa 3:31, "and king David followed the bier"; and in the New Testament in Lu 7:14, "and he (Jesus) came nigh and touched the bier." The Hebrew word rendered "bier" (miTTah) and its Greek equivalent (soros) mean strictly "coffin." The so-called "bier" among the ancient Hebrews was simply an open coffin or a flat wooden frame, on which the body of the dead was carried from the house to the grave.

(2) Closed coffins, so universal now in the West, were unknown to common usage among the Hebrews of olden times, though not unknown to Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

At the burial of Abner the people were commanded to "rend their clothes" and "gird themselves with sackcloth," and the king himself in token of his grief and royal regard, "followed the bier" in the procession to the grave (2Sa 3:31).

(3) Of Jesus, when He met the procession that went out of the gate of the city of Nain, bearing to the grave the only son of the widowed mother, Luke says, "When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her .... and he came nigh and touched the bier," and commanded the young man to arise, etc. We should recall that contact with a dead body was forbidden by the law as a source of defilement (Nu 19:11 f); so Jesus here "came nigh" and "touched the bier" only in raising the young man, thus avoiding any criticism for infraction of the law. In Joh 11:35, as here, we have a miracle of Jesus which clearly pointed to a higher law--the eternal law of compassion which received its first full expression in the life of Jesus and forms one of the distinctive features of the gospel.

George B. Eager