Word.ws English Dictionary

billy

/ˈbɪli/

billy noun: a fellow, companion, comrade, mate; partner, brother.

Noun (1)

billy (plural billies)

  1. A fellow, companion, comrade, mate; partner, brother.
  2. (Geordie) A good friend.
    • Fareweel, my rhyme-compoſing billie! / Your native ſoil was right ill-willie; / But may ye flouriſh like a lily, / Now bonilie! / I'll toaſt ye in my hindmoſt gillie, / Tho' owre the Sea!1786 July 31, Robert Burns, “On a Scotch Bard Gone to the West Indies”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire: Printed by John Wilson, →OCLC; reprinted Kilmarnock...
  3. A billy goat.
    • Then, during three days, I was amazed to see nannies with kids attack and chase off large billies.1970 August, Valerius Geist, Mountain Goat Mysteries, Field & Stream, page 62
    • In fact, distinguishing between billies and nannies isn't necessarily a sure thing.1992, Dwight R. Schuh, “Mountain Goat (Oreamnos americanus)”, in Bowhunter's Encyclopedia, page 276
  4. (UK, obsolete, slang) A silk handkerchief.
    • All fighting coves you too must know, / Ben Caunt as well as Bendigo, / And to each mill be sure to go, / […] And you must sport a blue billy, / Or a yellow wipe […]1859, Ducange Anglicus, The Vulgar Tongue, page 54

Noun (2)

billy (plural billies)

  1. A highwayman's club, billy club.
  2. A slubbing or roving machine.
    • […]at the time there existed in Dublin and its immediate neighbourhood, “forty-five manufacturers, having twenty-two billies, giving employment to 2885 work people, on whom depended for support 7386 individuals, manufacturing 29,312 pieces of cloth, of various qualities, valued at £336,380.”1840, The Citizen, page 347
    • On the second floor there were 2 billies, 1 carding and 1 scribbling machine.1967, Jennifer Tann, Gloucestershire Woollen Mills: Industrial Archaeology, page 126
  3. (Australia, New Zealand) A tin with a swing handle used to boil tea over an open fire; a billycan; a billypot.
    • Let's get the billy and cook some beans.
    • We had been absent from civilisation, so long, that our tin billies, the only boiling utensils we had, got completely worn or burnt out at the bottoms, and as the boilings for glue and oil must still go on, what were we to do with billies with no bottoms?1889, Ernest Giles, Australia Twice Traversed, published 2004, page 239
  4. (Australia, slang) A bong for smoking marijuana.
  5. (slang) A condom.

Proper noun capitalized: Billy

Billy (plural Billys)

  1. A diminutive of the male given name William.
    • “By the way,” Jessamy went on, “what’s your other name? You never told me.” “Stubbs,” said Billy, “William Stubbs!”.1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 98
    • Then there’s Billy Long, a former auctioneer and Republican congressman who Trump nominated and was confirmed less than two months ago to head the Internal Revenue Service, with “little background in tax policy beyond promoting a fraud-riddled tax credit”. Long has already been fired after clashing...2025 August 25, Robert Reich, “Why Trump built a staff of incompetent sycophants”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 25 Aug 2025
  2. (US, nickname) The B-25 twin-engine bomber aircraft used during World War Two, commonly called the "B-25 Mitchell" in honor of U.S. Army General William "Billy" Mitchell.
    • Just then a squadron of "Billys" -- twin-engined B-25 Mitchell land-based bombers -- flew overhead ….2003 Bradley, James Flyboys. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Ch 7

billy meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

billy in Hindi

बिली

billy in Tamil

ஆட்டுக்கடா

billy in Urdu

ساتھی

billy in Bengali

বিলি, বিল্লি
More languagesFewer languages
billy in Telugu
బిల్లీ, బిల్లి
billy in Malayalam
ബില്ലി
billy in Kannada
ಬಿಲ್ಲಿ
billy in Gujarati
બિલી
billy in Odia
ବିଲି, ବିଲୀ, ବିଲ୍ଲି

Examples of billy in a sentence

  • Billy spent all morning firing caps with his friends, re-enacting storming the beach at Normandy.
  • Billy was agentic in his learning and didn't only do what the teacher told him.
  • Billy needled his sister incessantly about her pimples.

All 40 example sentences with billy

Forms of billy

Noun
pluralbillies
Proper noun
pluralBillys
alternative formBillie

Plural of billy: billies

Origin of billy

Of obscure origin. Perhaps a variant of bully (“companion, mate, comrade”). Compare Scots billie (“a comrade; companion”). Compare also Middle Low German billig (“equitable, reasonable, lawful, fitting, according to natural law, just”).

Uncertain, but probably extracted from Scots billypot (“a type of cooking pot”), perhaps originally from the name Billy, a diminutive of William. The condom sense from the E-Rotic song Willy, Use a Billy... Boy, referring in turn to Billy Boy, a German brand of condoms.

Diminutive and pet-form; from Bill + -y.

Words formed from billy

Phrases with billy

13 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with billy

22 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about billy

What does billy mean?
Billy means a fellow, companion, comrade, mate; partner, brother.
What is billy in Hindi?
Billy in Hindi is बिली. See Billy meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is billy?
Billy can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce billy?
Billy is pronounced /ˈbɪli/.
What is the plural of billy?
The plural of billy is billies.

Words near billy in the dictionary

  1. billsticker
  2. billstickers
  3. billsticking
  4. Billund
  5. Billups
  6. billy
  7. Billy Barlow
  8. Billy Barlows
  9. Billy Big Balls
  10. Billy Big Bollocks
  11. Billy Bob

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: billy (page history and authors); Billy (page history and authors); billy (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); billy (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); billy (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); billy (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); billy (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); billy (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); billy (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); billy (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); billy (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-billy.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Billy.wav.

Cite this entry: “billy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/billy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.