English

Alternative forms

• Billie

Proper noun

Billy

1. A diminutive of the male given name William.
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.

   2003 Bradley, James Flyboys. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Ch 7:

   • Just then a squadron of "Billys" -- twin-engined B-25 Mitchell land-based bombers -- flew overhead [...].

Derived terms

• billy goat
• Billy no mates
• King Billy (Australia)

Swedish

Proper noun

Billy

1. A male given name borrowed from English.

English

Noun

billy ‎(plural billies)

1. A billy club.
2. A billy goat.
   • 1970 August, Valerius Geist, Mountain Goat Mysteries, Field & Stream, page 62,

     Then, during three days, I was amazed to see nannies with kids attack and chase off large billies.

   • 1992, Dwight R. Schuh, Mountain Goat (Oreamnos americanus), in Bowhunter's Encyclopedia, page 276,

     In fact, distinguishing between billies and nannies isn't necessarily a sure thing.

   • 2002, Douglas H. Chadwick, A Beast the Color of Winter: The Mountain Goat Observed, page 159,

     It isn't just billies that enter the bleak season with rut-depleted fat reserves, but rams, bull elk, buck deer, and others.

   1. A male goat; a ram.
3. (Geordie) A good friend.
4. (Australia, New Zealand) A tin used by bushmen to boil tea, a billypot.
   • For usage examples of this term, see Citations:billy.
5. (Britain, Australia, Canada) A billycan.

   Let's get the billy and cook some beans.

   • 1889, Ernest Giles, Australia Twice Traversed, 2004, page 239,

     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?

   • 1942, Emily Carr, The Book of Small, "Loyalty,"

     Mother prepared a splendid picnic. […] Rugs, food and the black billy for making tea, were packed into the old baby buggy and we trundled it straight down Simcoe Street.

   • 2011, Rod Moss, The Hard Light of Day: An Artist's Story of Friendships in Arrernte Country, unnumbered page,

     Over the fence, in a shallow gully 100 metres away, this guy and his wife were living on the dirt in the open weather with just a blanket, billies, a dog and a transistor radio. They didn't even have water.

6. (slang) A condom (From the E-Rotic song "Willy, Use a Billy...Boy")
7. A slubbing or roving machine.
   • 1840, The Citizen, page 347,

     […] 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.”

   • 1967, Jennifer Tann, Gloucestershire Woollen Mills: Industrial Archaeology, page 126,

     On the second floor there were 2 billies, 1 carding and 1 scribbling machine.

Derived terms

• billycan, billy-can
• billy cart
• Silly Billy, silly billy

References

• The New Geordie Dictionary, Frank Graham, 1987, ISBN 0946928118
• Sceilig: Information Pack for Troops (p. 4)
• The Patrol goes to Camp (pp. 9, 11).