[f. Billy, familiar perversion of Willie, hypocoristic or pet form of William: cf. Bobby = Robby = Robert.]
1. A term applied to various machines and implements: as, a. a slubbing or roving machine; b. a highwayman’s club; c. an Australian bushman’s tea-pot. Cf. uses of BETTY, JACK, JEMMY, JENNY.
1795. Edin. Advert., 6 Jan., 15/1. Five common carding engines … four pickers, four roving billies, twenty-one spinning jeannies.
1865. Times, 28 April, 12/3. The man struck Mr. Seward on the head with a billy, severely injuring the skull, and felled him almost senseless.
1872. Baden Powell, New Homes, 48. Men travelling about … invariably carry their billy or quart tin pot, wherein to make tea.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, III. 1165. The slubbing machine, or billy.
1881. Cheq. Career, 361. To cook dampers … and boil a ‘billy’ are works of art.
2. Comb. In names of animals, plants, etc., mostly local: as billy-biter, the Blue Titmouse; billy-button, local name of the Bachelor’s Button, Field Scabious, Double Daisy, Red Campion, and various other plants; billy-wix, the Tawny Owl. Billy roller, the wooden roller of a slubbing ‘billy’ (see quot.). See also the following words.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXV. 4/1. Draws back his hand … well pecked by the irritated matron. Hence he calls it ‘Billy Biter.’
1834. Blackw. Mag., XXXV. 297. Down came on his head … the patriotic billy-roller.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, III. 1166. This is the billy-roller, so much talked of in the controversies between the operatives and masters in the cotton-factories, as an instrument of cruel punishment to children, though no such machine has been used in cotton-mills for half a century at least.
