different between rabbit vs billy

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) enPR: r?b'it, IPA^(key): /??æb?t/
• Rhymes: -æb?t
• (General Australian, weak vowel merger) enPR: r?b'?t, IPA^(key): /??æb?t/
• Homophone: rabbet

Etymology 1

From Middle English rabet, rabette, from Middle French *robotte, *rabotte or Anglo-Latin rabettus, from dialectal Old French rabotte, probably a diminutive of Middle Dutch or West Flemish robbe, perhaps related to robbe (“seal”), itself of uncertain origin; possibly some imitative verb, maybe robben, rubben (“to rub”) is used here to allude to a characteristic of the animal. See rub.

Related forms include Middle French rabouillet (“baby rabbit”) and in French rabot (“plane”)), coming via Walloon Old French (reflected nowadays as Walloon robète (“rabbit”)), from Middle Dutch robbe (“rabbit; seal”); also Middle Low German robbe, rubbe (“rabbit”), and the later Low German Rubbe (“seal”), West Frisian robbe (“seal”), Saterland Frisian robbe (“seal”), North Frisian rob (“seal”), borrowed into German Robbe (“seal”).

Noun

rabbit (countable and uncountable, plural rabbits)

1. A mammal of the family Leporidae, with long ears, long hind legs and a short, fluffy tail.
2. (uncountable) The meat from this animal.
3. (uncountable) The fur of a rabbit typically used to imitate another animal's fur.
4. A runner in a distance race whose goal is mainly to set the pace, either to tire a specific rival so that a teammate can win or to help another break a record; a pacesetter.
5. (cricket) A very poor batsman; selected as a bowler or wicket-keeper.
6. (computing theory) A large element at the beginning of a list of items to be bubble sorted, and thus tending to be quickly swapped into its correct position. Compare turtle.
7. Rarebit; Welsh rabbit or a similar dish: melted cheese served atop toast.
   • 2018, Helen Saberi, Teatimes: A World Tour, Reaktion Books (?ISBN)

     The cheese mixture may be served with toast on the side or poured on top of toast and grilled until golden brown and bubbling. Other variations include Buck rabbit, a Welsh rabbit with a poached egg on top, and Yorkshire rabbit with bacon  ...

   • 1858, Mrs. N. K. M. Lee, The American Family Cook Book, page 47:

     CHEESE TOASTED, OR RABBIT.

   • 2019, Mark Kurlansky, Milk: A 10,000-Year History, Bloomsbury Publishing (?ISBN)

     Hannah Glasse offered recipes for Scotch, Welsh, and English rabbit. This is her Scotch rabbit: Toast a piece of bread very nicely […] Cut a slice of cheese, […]

8. A pneumatically-controlled tool used to insert small samples of material inside the core of a nuclear reactor.
   • 2012, Joseph Cerny, Nuclear Spectroscopy and Reactions 40-A (part 1, page 249)

     This rabbit is constructed such that only that fraction of the beam that passes through the 15g-in. diameter target container reaches the Faraday cup behind the rabbit.

Synonyms

(animal):

• bunny (hypocoristic, colloquial, pet name)
• bunny rabbit (hypocoristic, colloquial, pet name)
• coney, cony (dialect)

Hyponyms

• bunny rabbit
• jackrabbit

Derived terms

• rabbiter
• rabbity

Related terms

Translations

Verb

rabbit (third-person singular simple present rabbits, present participle rabbitting or rabbiting, simple past and past participle rabbitted or rabbited)

1. (intransitive) To hunt rabbits.
2. (US, intransitive) To flee.

   The informant seemed skittish, as if he was about to rabbit.

Synonyms

• (to flee): run off, scamper, bolt

Translations

See also

Etymology 2

From Cockney rhyming slang rabbit and pork, to talk.

Verb

rabbit (third-person singular simple present rabbits, present participle rabbiting, simple past and past participle rabbited)

1. (Britain, intransitive) To talk incessantly and in a childish manner; to babble annoyingly.

   Synonym: rabbit on

   Stop your infernal rabbiting! Use proper words or nobody will listen to you!

Synonyms

• (to talk incessantly and childishly): babble, blather, prattle; see also Thesaurus:prattle

Translations

See also

• chew the fat
• chew the cud (British)
• shoot the breeze (US)

Etymology 3

Perhaps a corruption of rabate.

Verb

rabbit

1. Confound; damn; drat.

Finnish

Noun

rabbit

1. Nominative plural form of rabbi.

Anagrams

• barbit

Hungarian

Etymology

rabbi +? -t

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?r?b?it]
• Hyphenation: rab?bit

Noun

rabbit

1. accusative singular of rabbi

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?li

Etymology 1

• Of obscure origin. Perhaps from the name Billy, a diminutive of William, or a variant of bully (“companion, mate, comrade”). Compare Scots billie (“a comrade; companion”).
• (condom): From the E-Rotic song Willy, Use a Billy... Boy.

Noun

billy (plural billies)

1. A billy club.
2. A billy goat.
   • 1970 August, Valerius Geist, Mountain Goat Mysteries, Field & Stream, page 62,

     Then, during three days, I was amazed to see nannies with kids attack and chase off large billies.

   • 1992, Dwight R. Schuh, Mountain Goat (Oreamnos americanus), in Bowhunter's Encyclopedia, page 276,

     In fact, distinguishing between billies and nannies isn't necessarily a sure thing.
   1. A male goat; a ram.
3. (Tyneside) A good friend.
4. (slang) A condom.
5. A slubbing or roving machine.
   • 1840, The Citizen, page 347,

     […] at the time there existed in Dublin and its immediate neighbourhood, “forty-five manufacturers, having twenty-two billies, giving employment to 2885 work people, on whom depended for support 7386 individuals, manufacturing 29,312 pieces of cloth, of various qualities, valued at £336,380.”

Derived terms

• billy buttons
• billy cart
• billygoat
• hillbilly
• Silly Billy, silly billy

Etymology 2

Of uncertain origin, but probably extracted from Scots billypot (“a type of cooking pot”).

Noun

billy (plural billies)

1. (Australia, New Zealand) A tin with a swing handle used to boil tea over an open fire; a billycan; a billypot.

   Let's get the billy and cook some beans.

   • 1889, Ernest Giles, Australia Twice Traversed, 2004, page 239,

     We had been absent from civilisation, so long, that our tin billies, the only boiling utensils we had, got completely worn or burnt out at the bottoms, and as the boilings for glue and oil must still go on, what were we to do with billies with no bottoms?

   • 1942, Emily Carr, The Book of Small, "Loyalty," [4]

     Mother prepared a splendid picnic. […] Rugs, food and the black billy for making tea, were packed into the old baby buggy and we trundled it straight down Simcoe Street.

   • 2011, Rod Moss, The Hard Light of Day: An Artist's Story of Friendships in Arrernte Country, unnumbered page,

     Over the fence, in a shallow gully 100 metres away, this guy and his wife were living on the dirt in the open weather with just a blanket, billies, a dog and a transistor radio. They didn't even have water.

2. (Australia, slang) A bong for smoking marijuana.

Translations

Derived terms

• billy boy
• billy bread
• billycan, billy-can
• billyful
• billy lid
• billy tea
• Christmas billy

References

• Frank Graham (1987) The New Geordie Dictionary, ?ISBN
• Sceilig: Information Pack for Troops (p. 4)
• The Patrol goes to Camp (pp. 9, 11).