billhook meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

billhook

noun

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

Engineering, Government, Military, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Politics, Tools, War, 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.

An agricultural hand tool often with a curved or hooked end to the blade used for pruning or cutting thick, woody plants.

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.1869, Richard D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone, chapter 38:
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.1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, “chapter 19”, in The Woodlanders […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

Literary, Often, As bill-hook A part of the knotting mechanism in a reaper-binder or baler (agricultural machinery).

Rare Rare form of bill hook (“spiked hook used in shops for hanging papers”).

Rare Rare form of bill hook (“sharply pointed spike on honeyguide hatchlings' mandibles”).

Synonyms: handbill, pruning hook, hack, hacker, hedging bill, hedging-bill, hedge bill, bill, broom hook, block hook, Yorkshire bill, vine hook
Related terms: brush hook, crowbill, hawkbill

billhook

verb

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

To use a billhook.

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.2010, Arto Paasilinna, The Year of the Hare: A Novel: