billy

noun

1. A fellow, companion, comrade, mate; partner, brother.
2. (Geordie)A good friend.

   “Fareweel, my rhyme-compoſing billie! / Your native ſoil was right ill-willie; / But may ye flouriſh like a lily, / Now bonilie! / I'll toaſt ye in my hindmoſt gillie, / Tho' owre the Sea!”

3. 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.”

   “In fact, distinguishing between billies and nannies isn't necessarily a sure thing.”

   “It isn't just billies that enter the bleak season with rut-depleted fat reserves, but rams, bull elk, buck deer, and others.”

4. (UK, obsolete, slang)A silk handkerchief.

   “All fighting coves you too must know, / Ben Caunt as well as Bendigo, / And to each mill be sure to go, / […] And you must sport a blue billy, / Or a yellow wipe […]”

5. A highwayman's club, billy club.
6. A slubbing or roving machine.

   “[…]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.””

   “On the second floor there were 2 billies, 1 carding and 1 scribbling machine.”

7. (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.”

   “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?”

   “Oh there once was a swagman camped in the billabong, Under the shade of a coolibah tree, And he sang as he looked at the old billy boiling, 'Who'll come a'waltzing Matilda, with me.'”

   “By the fire the billies were boiling, the tucker of both camps spread out on tarpaulins.”

   “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.”

8. (Australia, slang)A bong for smoking marijuana.
9. (slang)A condom.

name

1. A diminutive of the male given name William.

   ““By the way,” Jessamy went on, “what’s your other name? You never told me.” “Stubbs,” said Billy, “William Stubbs!”.”

   “Then there’s Billy Long, a former auctioneer and Republican congressman who Trump nominated and was confirmed less than two months ago to head the Internal Revenue Service, with “little background in tax policy beyond promoting a fraud-riddled tax credit”. Long has already been fired after clashing with the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent. Long was the sixth person to head the IRS this year.”

2. (US)The B-25 twin-engine bomber aircraft used during World War Two, commonly called the "B-25 Mitchell" in honor of U.S. Army General William "Billy" Mitchell.

   “Just then a squadron of "Billys" -- twin-engined B-25 Mitchell land-based bombers -- flew overhead ….”