bill
Pluralbills
Pluralbills
- 1A written account of the charge for goods sold, services provided, or work done; an invoice.
The contractor sent a detailed bill for the kitchen renovation.
Hospital bills piled up while she was out of work.
UsageA bill for the repairs; pay the bill. In American restaurants, the check is more usual.
Note
Invoice and account are its nearest synonyms, and the sense is old: Shakespeare's Timon of Athens already has "My lord, here is my bill." Sending one is the charging verb.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Shakespeare's Timon of Athens contains this quotation, confirming the historical use of bill for an account demanding payment. Titus speaks the line in Act 3, scene 4. folger.edu
- 2A draft of a proposed law presented to a legislature for debate and enactment.
The senator introduced a bill to expand rural broadband access.
After months of negotiation, both chambers passed the spending bill.
UsageYou introduce, pass or vote on a bill.
Similarmeasure
Note
Parliamentary English builds its verbs around this word. A member introduces a bill, and Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor threatens to "exhibit a bill in the parliament." A bill stays a bill while it is debated and amended, and it becomes an act only once it passes and receives final assent.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- A member of Parliament can introduce a bill. gov.uk
- Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor contains the quoted threat. Mistress Page speaks it in Act 2, scene 1. folgerdigitaltexts.org
- A proposed law remains a bill during debate and amendment. parliament.uk
- In the UK parliamentary context, passage alone is insufficient: a bill becomes an act when it receives royal assent. parliament.uk
- 3Paper currency of a particular denomination; a banknote.
The cashier held the hundred-dollar bill up to the light to check it.
The ATM dispenses bills in twenties and fifties.
UsageWith an amount in front: a ten-dollar bill, a hundred-dollar bill. British English says note.
Similarnote, banknote, greenback
Note
It combines readily with a denomination, as in a three dollar bill or a five dollar bill, and the Grateful Dead's "Friend of the Devil" (1970) counts cash simply as a number of bills, twenty of them.
- 4To send someone a statement of charges; to charge for goods or services provided.
Consultants typically bill the client monthly for ongoing work.
The hospital billed her insurance directly for the procedure.
UsageBill someone for something: the hospital billed her for the scan. Compare billed as, which means advertised as.
Similarcharge
- 5The beak of a bird, especially a small or flattened one; also applied to the snout of a platypus and to similar structures in turtles and other animals.
Shorebirds probe the mudflats with their slender bills.
The platypus uses its leathery bill to sense prey underwater.
Note
Ornithologists use it as freely as everyone else: it names the keratin-sheathed upper and lower mandibles, largely interchangeable with beak, though bill is preferred for slender or flattened forms. Old English bile could also mean an elephant's trunk; its origin is unknown, perhaps a special use of the word behind the hooked weapon. Shakespeare's woosel cock has an "orange-tawny bill"; neb and nib are close synonyms.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- A bird's bill consists of upper and lower mandibles covered with keratinized tissue. en.wikipedia.org
- Old English bile could mean an elephant's trunk. en.wiktionary.org
- The origin is unknown, with a suggested connection to the Old English word underlying the weapon sense. en.wiktionary.org
- The quoted description occurs in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 3, scene 1, sung by Bottom. shakespeare-navigators.ewu.edu
- 6To advertise or announce by a public notice, especially in promotional material for a performance or event.
Organizers bill the festival as the largest of its kind in the region.
Promoters billed the fight as the rematch of the decade.
UsageUsual frame: bill X as Y, often passive: the fight was billed as the rematch of the decade.
Note
G. Freeman Allen recalled in 1962 that new electric trains "were billed as the long-distance express multiple-units of the future." The construction reports a promoter's claim, so it can keep a writer at a polite distance from the hype.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- G. Freeman Allen's recollection appeared in 1962. en.wiktionary.org
- Allen used the quoted wording about electric trains. en.wiktionary.org
- 7A set of items, such as performances or events, presented together as one program.
The festival announced a bill featuring twelve bands across two stages.
Boxing fans complained that the weak undercard dragged down the whole bill.
UsageCommon in top the bill, on the same bill and double bill.
- 8A written list or formal document, now used mainly in set phrases such as 'bill of lading', 'bill of sale' and 'bill of health'.
The ship could not leave port until the inspector gave it a clean bill of health.
The clerk checked each crate against the bill of lading before the truck pulled out.
UsageA clean bill of health is also used figuratively: the inspectors gave the bank a clean bill of health.
Note
The list sense opens the paper family, and that family's story starts with a seal. Middle English bille came through Anglo-Norman and Old French from Medieval Latin bulla, a seal or sealed document. The same Latin word gave English bull, as in a papal bull, so the two words are doublets.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Middle English bille came through Anglo-Norman and Old French from Medieval Latin bulla, meaning a seal or sealed document. en.wiktionary.org
- Bill and bull in papal bull share the Latin ancestor bulla and are doublets. en.wiktionary.org
Less common meanings
- 9The stiff projecting brim at the front of a cap, shading the eyes and face from the sun.
Sweat had darkened the bill of his old fishing cap.
Some players keep the bill flat, while others bend it into a curve.
Similarbrim
- 10A printed or written notice posted up or handed out to advertise something, such as a performance, lecture, or sale.
Volunteers pasted bills for the rally on every lamppost.
An old bill advertising the 1924 county fair still hangs in the barn.
UsagePoster and flyer are the everyday words today. Signs still say post no bills.
Similarposter, flyer, notice, handbill, circular
Note
Posters and handouts gave the word two offspring. A bill announcing a performance lists who appears, which is how a festival's lineup came to be called a bill. Advertising someone on such a paper became the verb "to bill as".
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Performance bills listed the performers appearing. vam.ac.uk
- The advertising verb derives from advertising by a bill or public notice. en.wiktionary.org
- 11One hundred dollars or, in the UK, one hundred pounds, in casual or slang use.
The mechanic wanted a bill and a half just to look at the engine.
Fixing the brakes set him back three bills.
UsageThree bills means three hundred, and a bill and a half means one hundred and fifty.
Note
Slang shrinks the hundred-dollar note into the amount itself, and the amount is nearly always counted. Budd Schulberg's novel Waterfront talks of "making four or five bills a week," and Carl Hiaasen's Skin Tight (1989) has "Easiest five bills that woman ever made." It belongs to talk about cash and wages, not to formal writing, and it grew out of the banknote.
- 12A written instrument binding the signer to pay a stated sum on demand or at a future date, with or without interest; in the United States usually called a promissory note.
Short of cash, the shipowner signed a bill binding him to pay the supplier within sixty days.
Merchants settled distant accounts with bills rather than shipping coin.
Similarnote
Note
Commercial law's paper promise binds its signer to pay a stated sum, either on demand or at a set date. Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor lists it among a gentleman's papers: "any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation." Keep it apart from the banknote. Both can be called notes, but this kind of bill records its signer's promise to pay, while a banknote circulates as currency.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- A promissory instrument commits its maker to pay a stated sum on demand or at a specified future time. legislation.gov.uk
- Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor contains this wording about a gentleman's documents. folger.edu
- A bill of exchange orders another person to pay; a promissory note contains its maker's promise to pay. The note conflates these instruments. legislation.gov.uk
- The drawer or an indorser may expressly exclude or limit their liability. irishstatutebook.ie
- A banknote is also called a note. en.wikipedia.org
- Banknotes circulate as currency. bankofengland.co.uk
- 13
- 14An infantry weapon of the 14th and 15th centuries, with a broad, heavy, hook-shaped blade and short spikes mounted on a long staff; earlier, an Anglo-Saxon sword.
Militiamen drilled with bills in the courtyard before the spring campaign.
A rusted bill hung above the great hearth of the manor.
Similarpolearm
Note
The weapon sense carries the blade family's ancestry. Old English bil comes from a Germanic word for axe or sword and a root meaning "to strike," with cousins in Dutch bijl and German Bille, both "axe." It pairs naturally with bows, as in John Skelton's "our bowys, our byllys" at Flodden (1513) and Macaulay's "English bows and bills." Francis Grose (1786) equates Welsh bills with glaives.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 8 facts
- The weapon word descends from Old English bil and a Germanic word meaning axe or sword. en.wiktionary.org
- The underlying root means to strike. en.wiktionary.org
- Dutch bijl and German Bille are cognates glossed as axe. en.wiktionary.org
- John Skelton paired bows and bills in the quoted words about Flodden. otago.ac.nz
- The battle of Flodden occurred in 1513; the parenthesis dates the battle. historicengland.org.uk
- Macaulay wrote the phrase English bows and bills. dev.gutenberg.org
- Francis Grose equated Welsh bills with glaives in his 1786 treatise. en.wiktionary.org
- Grose described the Welsh glaive as a kind of bill. archive.org
- 15To roll marijuana into a cigarette; to roll a joint.
Someone was billing up in the corner of the kitchen while the music shook the windows.
He could bill a joint in seconds, even sitting in the back of a moving car.
UsageUsually bill a spliff or bill up: someone was billing up in the kitchen.
Similarroll
Note
British slang reached this verb by sound: it is a pronunciation spelling of build, so one bills a spliff as one would build it. Joseph Adenuga's "Ladies Hit Squad" (2016) uses it of a spliff, alongside cotch, which shows its register clearly: relaxed street talk, never formal.
- 16To stroke bill against bill, as doves do; to caress or exchange affection tenderly.
The pair of doves billed and cooed in the shade of the barn.
We watched the two lovebirds bill and coo in their cage all morning.
UsageMostly in bill and coo, said fondly or teasingly of a couple.
Similarnuzzle
Note
Shakespeare turns the doves' gesture on people in As You Like It: "as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling." That move from birds to lovers is the living use.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Billing describes doves stroking bill against bill. en.wiktionary.org
- Shakespeare uses this comparison in As You Like It; the quotation is accurate and is spoken by Touchstone. folger.edu
- 17To peck, as a bird does with its beak.
Note
Nobody pecks with this verb any more. It is obsolete, and a bird pecks in modern English. Anyone who now uses bill as a bird verb will be heard as meaning the doves' caress, so the pecking sense is best kept for reading older texts, not for writing new ones.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
- The pecking sense of the verb bill is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
- 18A narrow promontory or beaklike projection of land extending into the sea.
- 19A written declaration stating a wrong the complainant has suffered from the defendant, or a fault committed by some person against a law.
- 20Someone armed with a bill, a hooked polearm carried by foot soldiers; a billman.
- 21A pickaxe or mattock; a heavy hand tool for breaking up earth or rock.
- 22The pointed end of each arm of an anchor, lying at or beyond the fluke; the peak.
- 23To dig, chop, or cut something with a bill.
- 24At Eton College, a list of pupils to be disciplined for breaking school rules.
- 25The bell or boom of the bittern; the deep, resonant call made by the marsh bird.
The bittern's hollow bill was heard.
1793, William Wordsworth, An Evening Walk
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Medieval Latin bulla ("seal, sealed document") reached Middle English bille by way of Old French and Anglo-Norman. Bill, bull (as in a papal bull), and bulla are doublets.
Old English bile, a word of unknown origin, meant a bird's beak or an elephant's trunk. One idea is that it is a special use of bil or bill ("hook, sword"), another Old English word. Middle English had it as bille.
*bʰeyH-, a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to strike, beat," gave Proto-Germanic *bilją ("ax, sword, blade") and then Old English bil or bill, which could mean a hooked point, a curved weapon, or a two-edged sword. This became Middle English bill. Dutch bijl and German Bille ("ax") are cognates.
From a pronunciation spelling of build.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
- Bill originated as a pronunciation spelling of build. en.wiktionary.org