different between handbill vs billhook

English

Alternative forms

• hand bill, hand-bill

Etymology 1

From hand +? bill (“cutting instrument”).

Noun

handbill (plural handbills)

1. A pruning hook.
2. A chopping instrument; billhook

Etymology 2

From hand +? bill (“sheet of paper”).

Noun

handbill (plural handbills)

1. A loose printed sheet, to be distributed by hand.

Translations

See also

• advertisement
• booklet
• brochure
• catalogue, catalog
• circular
• flier, flyer
• junk mail
• leaflet
• pamphlet

English

Alternative forms

• bill-hook
• bill hook

Etymology

Earliest use in weapon (and later, agricultural) sense, bill (a bladed pike) +? hook; other senses formed anew from various meanings of bill.

Noun

billhook (plural billhooks)

1. (weaponry) A medieval polearm with a similar construct, 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
2. An agricultural implement often with a curved or hooked end to the blade used for pruning or cutting thick, woody plants.
   • 1869, Richard D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone, chapter 38

     I worked very hard in the copse of young ash, with my billhook and a shearing-knife; cutting out the saplings where they stooled too close together, making spars to keep for thatching, wall-crooks to drive into the cob, stiles for close sheep hurdles, and handles for rakes, and hoes, and two-bills, of the larger and straighter stuff.

   • 1887, Hardy, The Woodlanders, chapter 19:

     With a small billhook he carefully freed the collar of the tree from twigs and patches of moss which incrusted it to a height of a foot or two above the ground, an operation comparable to the "little toilet" of the executioner's victim.

3. Written as bill-hook: a part of the knotting mechanism in a reaper-binder or baler (agricultural machinery).
4. Written as bill hook: a spiked hook used in offices and shops for hanging bills or other small papers such as receipts.
5. (ornithology) Written as bill hook: a sharply pointed spike growing from the tip of the upper mandible of the hatchlings of honeyguides, used to destroy the eggs and kill the chicks of the host species.

Synonyms

• handbill, pruning hook, hack, hacker, hedging bill, hedging-bill, hedge bill, bill, broom hook, block hook, Yorkshire bill, vine hook

Descendants

• ? Irish: bileog
• ? Welsh: bilwg

Translations

Verb

billhook (third-person singular simple present billhooks, present participle billhooking, simple past and past participle billhooked)

1. To use a billhook

Anagrams

• hookbill