billy
nounEtymology 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.
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 more examples
- Oh there once was a swagman camped in the billabong, Under the shade of a coolibah tree, And he sang as he looked at the old billy boiling, 'Who'll come a'waltzing Matilda, with me.'1895, “Waltzing Matilda”, Banjo Paterson (lyrics):
- By the fire the billies were boiling, the tucker of both camps spread out on tarpaulins.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 10:
- 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.1942, Emily Carr, “Loyalty”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC:
- 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.2011, Rod Moss, The Hard Light of Day: An Artist's Story of Friendships in Arrernte Country, unnumbered page:
5
Slang A condom.
- Derived terms
- billy bread, billycan, billy-can, billy cart, billyful, billy lid, billy tea, billy tin, Christmas billy