Commerce, a name given by the Siamese to those small shells which are called cowries throughout almost all the other parts of the East Indies. See Cowries.

Biaëum, βιαῖον, in Rhetoric, denotes a kind of counter argument, whereby something alleged for the adversary is retorted against him, and made to conclude a different way: for instance, Occidit, quia adflitti interfecit.—Biaëum, Immo quia adflitti interfecit, non occidit; nam si id effet, in fugam me concessest. "You killed the person, because you were found standing by his body. Biaëum, Rather I did not kill him because I was found standing by his body; hence, in the other case, I should have fled away."

Biaëum, in the Grecian laws, was an action brought against those who ravished women, or used violence to any man's person.