Forms: 1–7 bil, 5–6 byl, bylle, bille, 1– bill. [Com. WGer.: OE. bil, billes neut., sword, falchion = OS. bil, the same, OHG. bill neut. (MHG. bil neut., mod.G. bille fem., pickaxe) prob.:—OTeut. *biljo-(m (with WGer. ll for lj), connected by some with Skr. bhil to split, cleave. Applied to various cutting weapons and implements, the relations of which to each other are not satisfactorily ascertained. (Ger. beil, OHG. bîhal, is an entirely different word.)]
† 1. A weapon of war mentioned in OE. poetry, a kind of broadsword, a falchion. Obs. (Probably passing with modified shape into sense 2.)
a. 1000. Beowulf, 4126. Æfter billes bite.
c. 1050. Ags. Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, Voc., 376. Chalibem, bill.
c. 1205. Lay., 1740. Þer wes bil ibeat; þer wes balu muchel.
[1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. v. 273, note. The bill here [in Death of Brihtnoth] spoken of was a sword and not an axe.]
2. An obsolete military weapon used chiefly by infantry; varying in form from a simple concave blade with a long wooden handle, to a kind of concave ax with a spike at the back and its shaft terminating in a spear-head; a halberd.
Distinct forms of bills seem to have been painted or varnished in different colors; hence the black and brown bills of the 16th and 17th centuries.
c. 1300. K. Alis., 1624. With longe billes … They carve heore bones.
1465. Marg. Paston, Lett., 518, II. 215. The tenauntes … havyng rusty polexis and byllys.
1495. Act 11 Hen. VII., lxiv. Pream., Armours Defensives, as … Bowes, Billes, Hauberts.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., III. ii. 118. Distaffe-Women manage rustie Bills.
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, I. i. 2. Inveterate opinion … touching blacke bils and bowes.
1603. Drayton, Bar. Warres, II. xxxvii. Wer’t with the Speare, or Browne Bill, or the Pike.
1813. Scott, Trierm., I. xiii. When the Gothic gateway frown’d, Glanced neither bill nor bow.
1834. Planché, Brit. Costume, 33.
b. A similar weapon used by constables of the watch till late in the 18th cent. Also attrib.
1589. Pappe w. Hatchet (1844), 28. All weapons from the taylors bodkin, to the watchmans browne bil.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, III. iii. 44. Haue a care that your bills be not stolne.
1616. Fletcher, Cust. Country, II. i. 9. 1. Off. He was still in quarrels, scorned us Peace-makes, And all our bill-authority.
1799. S. Freeman, Town Off., 176. Every watchman carries a staff with a bill fastened thereon.
3. Short for BILL-MAN.
1495. Hen. VII., in Ellis, Orig. Lett., I. 11, I. 21. For … an archer or bille on horsback viijd. by the day.
1513. Hen. VIII., in Strype, Eccl. Mem., I. II. App. i. 4. A hundred able men … wherof threescore to be archers and forty bills on foot.
1532. Hervet, Xenophon’s Househ. (1768), 35. Billes, and archers, the which folowe their capitaynes in good arraye.
1825. Scott, Talism., x. A strong guard of bills and bows.
4. An implement used for pruning, cutting wood, lopping trees, hedges, etc., having a long blade with a concave edge, often ending in a sharp hook (cf. BILL-HOOK), and a wooden handle in line with the blade, which may be long as in the hedging-bill, or short as in the hand-bill. (The form of the ‘bill’ varies greatly in different localities.)
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, Voc., 106. Falcastrum, siþe, uel bill.
1481. Caxton, Reynard, xxxiii. § 1. The men … cam out with stauys and byllis, with flaylis and pykforkes.
1552. Huloet, Byl called a forest bil, or bushsithe.
1570. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1835), 334. Ij paire of wood skeles, one bilstaffe iiijs.
a. 1604. Hanmer, Chron. Irel. (1633), 103. Having a forrest Bill on his shoulders.
1643. W. Greenhill, Axe at Root, 19. It is not Falx, a Bill or Hooke, to chop off some Armes or Bowes.
1740. Somerville, Hobbinol, ii. 80. And with his crooked Bill Cut sheer the frail Support.
1862. Trench, Monk & Bird, xxxiii. Poems 28. The woodman’s glittering bill.
† 5. A digging implement; a mattock or pickax.
[c. 1050. Ags. Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, Voc., 361. Bidubium, marra, bill.]
c. 1325. Pol. Songs (1839), 151. Thah y sulle mi bil ant my borstax.
c. 1400. Ywaine & Gaw., 3223. Thai had broght bath bill and spade.
1468. Medulla Gram., Fossorium, a byl or a pykeys.
1483. Cath. Angl., 31. A Bille (a Byll or a pycoss), fossorium, ligo.
6. Comb. † Bill-hager (?); BILLMAN, q.v.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst. 85. Both bosters and bragers God kepe us fro … From alle bylle hagers with colknyfes that go.
