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
Alan Beck, an attorney for two military veterans who challenged the billy club ban, welcomed Benitez’s ruling.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 26, 2024
The Yurok, who sought to defend their fishing rights and tribal sovereignty, faced off with officers in riot gear holding billy clubs and M-16 rifles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2023
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
She was careful to keep the hole itself blocked so he wouldn’t notice it as she hooked his billy goats into their traces.
From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack
Watch a new Korean film: Elizabeth Holmes and Billy Evans aren’t the only example of the perils of inviting a documentarian into your home.
From Slate ● Nov. 9, 2026
The electric piano and loping groove on “Insignificant Other” give it the loose funkiness of Billy Preston, with a bit of rock crunch on the chorus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2026
That is before you even get to options such as Sydney Roosters' Billy Smith, Wigan's Jake Wardle and Leeds Rhinos duo Ash Handley and Mikolaj Oledzki, all absent through injury.
From BBC ● Oct. 30, 2026
Fielder and co-director Lance Oppenheim spent 34 days capturing Holmes with her partner, Billy Evans, and their baby and toddler before the former Theranos CEO started her 11-year prison sentence for fraud.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026
During the long war, Billy Lee usually carried the general’s field glass, or telescope, and “most precious letters,” perhaps those from his wife, Martha, most of which she later destroyed.
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
Blindfolded by their helmets, billies more or less at the ready, they go through their maneuvers like a ruptured accordion.
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
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
At slaps the billies halt a blink, Till lasses strip their shoon: Wi’ faith an’ hope, an’ love an’ drink, They’re a’ in famous tune For crack that day.
From The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham by Robert Burns
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
