billhook

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word billhook. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word billhook, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say billhook in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word billhook you have here. The definition of the word billhook will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofbillhook, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
See also: bill-hook and bill hook

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
A billhook (agricultural implement)

Alternative forms

Etymology

Earliest use in weapon (and later, agricultural) sense, bill (“a bladed pike”) +‎ hook; other senses formed anew from various meanings of bill.

Noun

billhook (plural billhooks)

  2. (weaponry) A medieval polearm, fitted to a long handle, sometimes with an L-shaped tine or a spike protruding from the side or the end of the blade for tackling the opponent; a bill.
  4. An agricultural hand tool often with a curved or hooked end to the blade used for pruning or cutting thick, woody plants.
    • 1869, Richard D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone, chapter 38:
      I worked very hard in the copse of young ash, with my billhook and a shearing-knife; cutting out the saplings where they stooled too close together, making spars to keep for thatching, wall-crooks to drive into the cob, stiles for close sheep hurdles, and handles for rakes, and hoes, and two-bills, of the larger and straighter stuff.
    • 1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, “chapter 19”, in The Woodlanders , volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
      With a small billhook he carefully freed the collar of the tree from twigs and patches of moss which incrusted it to a height of a foot or two above the ground, an operation comparable to the "little toilet" of the executioner's victim.
  6. (written as bill-hook) A part of the knotting mechanism in a reaper-binder or baler (agricultural machinery).
  8. (written as bill hook) A spiked hook used in offices and shops for hanging bills or other small papers such as receipts.
    Coordinate term: spindle
  10. (ornithology) (written as bill hook) A sharply pointed spike growing from the tip of the upper mandible of the hatchlings of honeyguides, used to destroy the eggs and kill the chicks of the host species.

Synonyms

The terms below need to be checked and allocated to the definitions (senses) of the headword above. Each term should appear in the sense for which it is appropriate. For synonyms and antonyms you may use the templates {{syn|en|...}} or {{ant|en|...}}.

Descendants

  • → Irish: bileog
  • → Welsh: bilwg

Translations

Verb

billhook (third-person singular simple present billhooks, present participle billhooking, simple past and past participle billhooked)

  1. To use a billhook
    • 2010, Arto Paasilinna, The Year of the Hare: A Novel:
      Toward the end of July, Vatanen took a forestry job. It meant billhooking and chopping excessive undergrowth from the woods on the sandy ridges around Kuhmo and living in a tent with an ever more faithful, almost full- grown hare.

Anagrams

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia