Word.ws English Dictionary

billycan

billycan noun: a lightweight pot for cooking or boiling water, used in camping.

billycan: a lightweight pot for cooking or boiling water, used in camping
Image: Flickr user "Johan Larsson", CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

billycan (plural billycans)

  1. (Australia, South Africa, UK) A lightweight pot for cooking or boiling water, used in camping.
    • The filling of the billycan, cutting the supports to hang it over the fire, was a public show, but many times he would do this anyway to entertain himself. He unpacked the billycan from his old rucksack and I got out the tea and sugar. He filled the billy, then used his penknife to cut sticks to...1997, Ian Player, Zulu Wilderness: Shadow and Soul, page 69
    • Galloping a hundred yards, then jumping off and remounting an excited horse while holding a full billycan of water and beating everyone back over the starting line without spilling it sounded easy – until you tried. Billycans were lost, dropped, trampled underfoot.2010, Kerry McGinnis, Wildhorse Creek, unnumbered page

Examples of billycan in a sentence

  • The filling of the billycan, cutting the supports to hang it over the fire, was a public show, but many times he would do this anyway to entertain himself.1997, Ian Player, Zulu Wilderness: Shadow and Soul, page 69:
  • A good billycan was one that had seen many fires, and was pitch black.2011, Colin Graham Smith, Shadows of War, page 43:

Synonyms of billycan

Forms of billycan

pluralbillycans

Origin of billycan

From billy + can.

Questions about billycan

What does billycan mean?
Billycan means a lightweight pot for cooking or boiling water, used in camping.
How do you use billycan in a sentence?
The filling of the billycan, cutting the supports to hang it over the fire, was a public show, but many times he would do this anyway to entertain himself.
What part of speech is billycan?
Billycan is a noun.
What is the plural of billycan?
The plural of billycan is billycans.

Words near billycan in the dictionary

  1. billy-o
  2. billy-oh
  3. Billybob
  4. billyboy
  5. billyboys
  6. billycan
  7. billycans
  8. billycart
  9. billycarts
  10. billycock
  11. billycocks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: billycan (page history and authors). 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-AU ck1 billycan.ogg.

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