what is the use of bean in spring code example

Example: bean definition in spring

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>

<beans xmlns = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
   xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd">

   <!-- A simple bean definition -->
   <bean id = "..." class = "...">
      <!-- collaborators and configuration for this bean go here -->
   </bean>

   <!-- A bean definition with lazy init set on -->
   <bean id = "..." class = "..." lazy-init = "true">
      <!-- collaborators and configuration for this bean go here -->
   </bean>

   <!-- A bean definition with initialization method -->
   <bean id = "..." class = "..." init-method = "...">
      <!-- collaborators and configuration for this bean go here -->
   </bean>

   <!-- A bean definition with destruction method -->
   <bean id = "..." class = "..." destroy-method = "...">
      <!-- collaborators and configuration for this bean go here -->
   </bean>

   <!-- more bean definitions go here -->
   
</beans>