billy
noun
a police officer's club or baton.
billy
1 American
[bil-ee]
/ ˈbɪl i /
noun
-
billies
plural
-
Also called billy club. a police officer's club or baton.
-
a heavy wooden stick used as a weapon; cudgel.
-
Scot. Dialect. comrade.
-
Also called billycan. Australian. any container in which water may be carried and boiled over a campfire, ranging from a makeshift tin can to a special earthenware kettle; any pot or kettle in which tea is boiled over a campfire.
-
Textiles. (in Great Britain) a roving machine.
Billy
2
American
[bil-ee]
/ ˈbɪl i /
noun
billy
1
British
/ ˈbɪlɪ /
noun
-
a metal can or pot for boiling water, etc, over a campfire
-
( as modifier )
billy-tea
-
informal to make tea
billy
2
British
/ ˈbɪlɪ /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of billy
Perhaps all independently derived generic uses of Billy (male name); for Australian sense compare Scots dialect billy-pot cooking pot
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
We could see into that Holiday Inn through its plate glass windows and observe cops walking around its lobby with billy clubs, keeping a watchful eye on us.
From Salon ● Apr. 18, 2025
Where bambinos, billy goats and boogeymen curse entire teams.
From Seattle Times ● May 15, 2024
Alan Beck is counsel for the plaintiffs in both the California billy club case and the Hawaii butterfly knife case.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2024
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Mr. Roman in 2008 first publicized “the presence of two members of the New Black Panther Party — one carrying a billy club — outside of a Philadelphia polling site.”
From Washington Times ● Aug. 15, 2023
Then he went outside, to pens where the animals were kept, and he came back into the wedding feast leading a large, extremely irritated billy goat.
From "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman
When Chelsea were placed under a transfer embargo in 2019, the likes of Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham, Fikayo Tomori, Billy Gilmour and Callum Hudson-Odoi all emerged as senior players.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
I found my assigned seat near the front of the orchestra section, and right next to Billy Porter’s sister.
From Slate ● Oct. 1, 2026
"Billy and Jenny, my son and daughter-in-law, deserve their day in court."
From Barron's ● Sep. 29, 2026
Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s general manager, actually visited Mr. Gammons on the Cape to discuss whether or not he should accept the Red Sox’s offer to become the team’s general manager.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
In the few portraits of Washington in which Billy appears, a horse usually obscures his body, but he is depicted with fairly dark skin.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
Little Rock came awake with a shock: a National Guard unit, 150 strong, with MIS, carbines and billies, churned up to the darkened high school in trucks, halftracks and jeeps.
From Time Magazine Archive
Sweaty, swaying bodies surged across the square toward the Embassy, where tin-helmeted Egyptian police barred the way with billies.
From Time Magazine Archive
Blindfolded by their helmets, billies more or less at the ready, they go through their maneuvers like a ruptured accordion.
From Time Magazine Archive
A pair of young billies butted each other with their horns, but most of the time the animals were perfectly orderly.
From "The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm" by Nancy Farmer
This garred a' the billies sit back in their seats, an' dicht their moos wi' their jeckit sleeves, an' host.
From My Man Sandy by J. B. Salmond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
