Skip to main content
billhook

billhook

9.1
A tool with a short curved blade for cutting small branches and shrubs
  • noun
  • /ˈbɪlˌhʊk/
  • UK
translation icon : hacha de podar
  • She demonstrated how to properly wield a billhook for trimming branches and clearing brush.

Examples

  • Fetch the billhook, wife, and I will smite Jonas as Abraham would have done his seed.

  • Fetch the billhook and I will dash his skull!

  • Tools such as billhooks are made available grudgingly as needed.

    Academic text (1993)
  • A billhook or sickle.

    Academic text (1993)
  • Long ago, a notorious highwayman placed a light rifle in the crotch of one of the apple trees and then, surprised by mortality in the shape of a hedge-layer with a billhook, never removed it.

    Fiction book (1994)
  • In one such action, three of the nine participants had spears, others had billhooks, and the two small dogs that had helped with tracking stayed back out of the way until the hunters rushed in on the pig and dispatched it.

    Academic text (1993)
  • He imagined walking behind her in the woods, hearing the swing and swish of her billhook and the old Joni Mitchell songs she hummed to herself.

    Fiction book (1994)
  • To clear the overgrown path, he used a billhook to cut back the thick brambles.

  • With his trusty billhook in hand, the gardener skillfully pruned the shrubs in the backyard.

Synonyms

bill
vsbillhook
  • Archaic
5 8.9

A tool with a curved blade for cutting branches

is the same tool but called by a different name
pruning hook
vsbillhook
7.2

A tool with a long handle and a curved blade used to cut small tree branches and shrubs

is a more general cutting tool not made specifically for small trees

Surface Forms

billhook singular
billhooks plural

Morphology

billhook = bill + hook (semi-transparent) = bill + hook

The compound literally combines 'bill' (beak/hooked edge) + 'hook' to denote a hooked-blade tool, but the specialized tool sense and the less familiar sense of 'bill' (not 'invoice') make it only partially predictable for learners.

Etymology

The word billhook comes from bill meaning 'beak' and hook meaning 'hook', so imagine a sharp, curved beak on a handle. That's why a billhook is a tool used for cutting wood and pruning branches.