billhook
Plural: billhooks
Noun
- A cutting tool with a hooked blade, used for pruning.
- a long-handled saw with a curved blade
- 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.
- A part of the knotting mechanism in a reaper-binder or baler (agricultural machinery).
- Rare form of bill hook (“spiked hook used in shops for hanging papers”).
- Rare form of bill hook (“sharply pointed spike on honeyguide hatchlings' mandibles”).
Verb
- To use a billhook.
Examples
- She used ’BILLHOOK’ to cut through the cluttered letters on her rack and make a playable word.
Origin / Etymology
Earliest use in weapon (and later, agricultural) sense, bill (“a bladed pike (obsolete)”) + hook; other senses formed anew from various meanings of bill.
Synonyms
bill, Yorkshire bill, block hook, broom hook, hack, hacker, handbill, hedge bill, hedging bill, hedging-bill, pruning hook, vine hook
Scrabble Score: 17
billhook: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordbillhook: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
billhook: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary