Meaning

• Any of various bladed or pointed hand weapons, originally designating an Anglo-Saxon sword, and later a weapon of infantry, especially in the 14th and 15th centuries, commonly consisting of a broad, heavy, double-edged, hook-shaped blade, with a short pike at the back and another at the top, attached to the end of a long staff.

• A cutting instrument, with hook-shaped point, and fitted with a handle, used in pruning, etc.; a billhook.

• Somebody armed with a bill; a billman.

• A pickaxe, or mattock.

• The extremity of the arm of an anchor; the point of or beyond the fluke (also called the peak).

Meaning

• To dig, chop, etc., with a bill.