1. A list of passengers booked for seats in a stagecoach or other public vehicle for places on the road. Also a detailed statement of goods entrusted to a public carrier for delivery at stated destinations.
1791. Boswell, Johnson, 3 June 1784. The Oxford post-coach took us up in the morning at Bolt-Court…. I found from the way-bill, that Dr. Johnson had made our names be put down.
1821. Massachusetts Spy, 23 May (Thornton). Packages of the larger kind, belonging to any passenger, were always entered on the way-bill.
1824. Barnewall & Cresswell, Rep. K. B., II. 718. He did not see any Norwich way-bill [in the waggon].
1849. De Quincey, Eng. Mail Coach, Wks. 1862, IV. 297. Ucalegon, as it happened, was not in the way-bill and therefore could not have been booked.
1864. T. S. Williams & Simmonds, Engl. Commerc. Corresp., 91. You will also be kind enough to repay him the carriage according to the bills of lading or the waybills he will show you.
1897. Bram Stoker, Dracula, xvii. (1912), 244. The official … sending also … the way-bill and all the papers connected with the delivery of the boxes at Carfax.
2. A list of places to be visited on a journey.
1866. Daily Tel., 16 Jan., 7/4. All of which places … are set down for visit in my way-bill.
1879. Tourgee, Fool’s Errand, xxxv. 242. He had been traveling on what is known in that country as a ‘way-bill,’ or a description of a route received from another.
transf. 1823. Moore, Rhymes on Road, Introd. 89, I’ve got into the easy mode, You see, of rhyming on the road—Making a way-bill of my pages, Counting the stanzas by my stages.
3. U.S. A label attached to an article in transit to indicate its destination, mode of transport, etc.
1887. Gunter, Mr. Barnes, xx. 145. The old and dilapidated little dirty trunk covered with numerous way-bills.
4. In recent use, a kind of pass by producing which a man ‘on the road’ can obtain relief at certain stages of his journey. So way-bill system.
1893. Times, 20 Sept., 3/6. This system, which became known as the ‘waybill’ system, was worked in this way. When a destitute wayfarer left a casual ward in the morning he could, on application, obtain a waybill or passport, on which were recorded the name of the workhouse at which it was granted, the day and hour at which the bearer left it, and the route on which he was travelling, [etc.].
1897. Church Times, 20 Aug., 187/1. Any poor traveller … will be … fed, lodged, and passed on, the following morning, with a stamped way-bill, to the next lodging-house on the route.
Hence Way-bill v. U.S. trans., to enter (goods) on a way-bill.
1877. W. H. Burroughs, Taxation, 140. Freight being way-billed through.
1890. Railways Amer., 412. He … must count, seal, superscribe, and way-bill money packages and handle oyster-kegs … at a moment’s notice.
