biers

Noun

bier (plural biers)

1. A litter to transport the corpse of a dead person.
   • They bore him bare-faced on the bier.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
2. A platform or stand where a body or coffin is placed.
   • On April 5, 1925, Chiang Kai-shek returned from the First Eastern Expedition to the Whampoa Military Academy to officiate at a funeral service for Sun Yat-sen, who had died in Peking on March 12. Huang Chi-lu, then a young professor of political science at the University of Kwangtung and destined...1971, Pichon Pei Yung Loh, The early Chiang Kai-shek: A STUDY OF HIS PERSONALITY AND POLITICS, 1887-1924, Columbia University Press, page 1
3. A count of forty threads in the warp or chain of woollen cloth.