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
/ ˈbɪlɪˌkæn, 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
“You stink like an old billy goat,” she said, and wrinkled her nose.
From "Dead End in Norvelt" by Jack Gantos
Charlotte remembers being afraid to go to sleep because she was worried that Billy might have a seizure and die during the night.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
Billy receives his medicine through the NHS, something Charlotte said the family is "blessed" to have, but she argues that many needy patients are being left behind.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
Mr. Lewis documented how Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, seemed to have figured out offense by emphasizing slugging and on-base percentage over batting average.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Billy Maximoff, in the 2024 Disney+ series “Agatha All Along.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
Both Ona and Billy would have had to balance the risks and rewards of escaping bondage.
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
But we had our cooking-pots and billies, our sheath-knives, wooden skewers, fingers, and O'Gaygun's shingle-plates.
From Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand by William Delisle Hay
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.
