billy

A highwayman's club, billy club.

Noun

  1. A highwayman's club, billy club.
  2. A slubbing or roving machine.
    • […]at the time there existed in Dublin and its immediate neighbourhood, “forty-five manufacturers, having twenty-two billies, giving employment to 2885 work people, on whom depended for support 7386 individuals,...
    • On the second floor there were 2 billies, 1 carding and 1 scribbling machine. - 1967, Jennifer Tann, Gloucestershire Woollen Mills: Industrial Archaeology, page 126:
  3. A tin with a swing handle used to boil tea over an open fire; a billycan; a billypot.
    • Let's get the billy and cook some beans.
    • We had been absent from civilisation, so long, that our tin billies, the only boiling utensils we had, got completely worn or burnt out at the bottoms, and as the boilings for glue and oil must still go on, what were we...
    • Oh there once was a swagman camped in the billabong, Under the shade of a coolibah tree, And he sang as he looked at the old billy boiling, 'Who'll come a'waltzing Matilda, with me.' - 1895, “Waltzing Matilda”, Banjo...
  4. A bong for smoking marijuana.
  5. A condom.

Origin

Uncertain, but probably extracted from Scots billypot (“a type of cooking pot”), perhaps originally from the name Billy, a diminutive of William. The condom sense from the E-Rotic song Willy, Use a Billy... Boy, referring in turn to Billy Boy, a German brand of condoms.

Forms

billies

Derived

billy bread billycan billy-can billy cart billyful billy lid billy tea billy tin Christmas billy

Noun Entry 2

  1. A fellow, companion, comrade, mate; partner, brother.
  2. A good friend.
    • Fareweel, my rhyme-compoſing billie! / Your native ſoil was right ill-willie; / But may ye flouriſh like a lily, / Now bonilie! / I'll toaſt ye in my hindmoſt gillie, / Tho' owre the Sea! - 1786 July 31, Robert Burns,...
  3. A billy goat.
    • 1970 August, Valerius Geist, Mountain Goat Mysteries, Field & Stream, page 62, Then, during three days, I was amazed to see nannies with kids attack and chase off large billies.
    • In fact, distinguishing between billies and nannies isn't necessarily a sure thing. - 1992, Dwight R. Schuh, “Mountain Goat (Oreamnos americanus)”, in Bowhunter's Encyclopedia, page 276:
    • It isn't just billies that enter the bleak season with rut-depleted fat reserves, but rams, bull elk, buck deer, and others. - 2002, Douglas H. Chadwick, A Beast the Color of Winter: The Mountain Goat Observed, page 159:
  4. A silk handkerchief.
    • All fighting coves you too must know, / Ben Caunt as well as Bendigo, / And to each mill be sure to go, / […] And you must sport a blue billy, / Or a yellow wipe […] - 1859, Ducange Anglicus, The Vulgar Tongue, page 54:

Origin

Of obscure origin. Perhaps a variant of bully (“companion, mate, comrade”). Compare Scots billie (“a comrade; companion”). Compare also Middle Low German billig (“equitable, reasonable, lawful, fitting, according to natural law, just”).

Forms

billies

Derived

billy boy billy buttons billy-cock billygoat billy-goat billyhood billy-o billy-oh hillbilly silly-billy Silly Billy silly billy swampbilly