Word.ws English Dictionary

fill the bill

fill the bill is the alternative form of fit the bill.

Meaning of fit the bill

Verb

fit the bill (third-person singular simple present fits the bill, present participle fitting the bill, simple past and past participle fit the bill)

  1. (idiomatic) To satisfy a need; to serve a purpose; to fulfill specified requirements.
    • Near-synonym: make the grade
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To match the description.
    • The Vermont State Police spent the first few months treating Brianna’s case with scepticism concerning foul play. Brianna was profiled as a teen with an unstable living situation and a habit of moving between houses. To the police, she fit the bill for a runaway.2026 July 16, Nicholas Muhoro, “Inside the 2004 Brianna Maitland Case: One of Vermont’s Most Haunting Mysteries”, in Skip Boring, archived from the original on 21 Jul 2026

Forms of fill the bill

third-person singular presentfills the bill
present participlefilling the bill
past participlefilled the bill
pastfilled the bill

Questions about fill the bill

What is fill the bill the alternative form of?
Fill the bill is the alternative form of fit the bill.

Words near fill the bill in the dictionary

  1. fill site
  2. fill soil
  3. fill soils
  4. fill someone's boots
  5. fill someone's shoes
  6. fill the bill
  7. fill up
  8. fill'd
  9. fill-dike
  10. fill-dyke
  11. fill-in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fill the bill (page history and authors); fit the bill (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-fill the bill.ogg.

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