bill

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An itemized list or statement of fees or charges.
2. n. A statement or list of particulars, such as a theater program or menu.
3. n. The entertainment offered by a theater.
4. n. A public notice, such as an advertising poster.
5. n. A piece of legal paper money: a ten-dollar bill.
6. n. Slang One hundred dollars.
7. n. A bill of exchange.
8. n. Obsolete A promissory note.
9. n. A draft of a proposed law presented for approval to a legislative body.
10. n. The law enacted from such a draft: a bottle bill in effect in three states; the GI Bill.
11. n. Law A document presented to a court and containing a formal statement of a case, complaint, or petition.
12. v. To present a statement of costs or charges to.
13. v. To enter on a statement of costs or on a particularized list.
14. v. To advertise or schedule by public notice or as part of a program.
15. v. To declare or describe officially; proclaim: a policy that was billed as an important departure for the administration.
16. n. The horny part of the jaws of a bird; a beak.
17. n. A beaklike mouth part, such as that of a turtle.
18. n. The visor of a cap.
19. n. Nautical The tip of the fluke of an anchor.
20. v. To touch beaks together.
21. idiom. bill and coo To kiss or caress and murmur endearments.
22. n. A billhook.
23. n. A halberd or similar weapon with a hooked blade and a long handle.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The beak or neb of a bird. It consists of the upper and lower mandibles, so far as these are sheathed in horn. The apposed edges of the mandibles are the tomia; the line of apposition, the commissure; the highest middle lengthwise line of the upper mandible, the culmen or ridge; and the corresponding line of the lower mandible, the gonys or keel. The nasal fossa is a pit, usually close to the base of the upper mandible, in which the nostrils open; a sheath at the base of the bill is the cere. The leading shapes of the bill among birds are technically expressed by derivatives and compounds of rostrum (which see), as conirostral, dentirostral, tenuirostral, fissirostral, curvirostral, pressirostral, longirostral, cultrirostral, lamellirostral, etc.; and many other descriptive terms are equally technical in this application.
2. n. The beak, snout, rostrum, or jaws of sundry other animals, as turtles, cephalopods, many fishes, etc.
3. To join bills or beaks, as doves; caress in fondness.
4. To rub the bill.
5. n. In the earliest use, a kind of broadsword.
6. n. An obsolete military weapon, consisting of a broad hook-shaped blade, having a short pike at the back and another at the summit, fixed to a long handle. It was used until the fifteenth century by the English infantry, especially in defending themselves against cavalry, and to the end of the seventeenth century by civic guards or watchmen, etc. They were formerly sometimes called brown-bills or black-bills, probably because not brightened, but colored like the modern rifle-barrel.
7. n. A cutting instrument with a blade hook-shaped toward the point, or having a concave cutting edge, used by plumbers, basket-makers, gardeners, and others. Such instruments, when used by gardeners for pruning hedges, trees, etc., are called hedge-bills or bill-hooks. See bill-hook.
8. n. A pickax; a mattock.
9. n. Nautical: The point or extremity of the fluke of an anchor.
10. n. The end of compass- or knee-timber.
11. n. A writing of any kind, as a will, a medical prescription, etc.; a billet.
12. n. A written petition; a prayer.
13. n. In law, a name given to several papers in lawsuits; particularly, when used alone, to the bill in equity or bill of indictment (see below). It is a statement of complaint, and contains the fact complained of, the damage sustained, and a petition or process against the defendant for redress. It is used both in equity and in criminal cases. In Scots law, every summary application in writing, by way of petition to the Court of Session, is called a bill.
14. n. In com., a written statement of the names, quantities, and prices of articles sold by one person to another, with the date of sale, or a statement of work done, with the amount charged; an account of money claimed for goods supplied or services rendered.
15. n. An acknowledgment of debt; a promissory note: now obsolete except as sometimes used, especially in the United States, for bank-note. See 10.
16. n. A bill of exchange (which see, below).
17. n. Any written paper containing a statement of particulars: as, a bill of charges or expenditures; a bill of fare or provisions, etc.
18. n. A form or draft of a proposed statute presented to a legislature, but not yet enacted or passed and made law. In some cases statutes are called bills, but usually they are qualified by some description: as, a bill of attainder.
19. n. A paper written or printed, and intended to give public notice of something, especially by being exhibited in some public place; an advertisement posted; a placard.
20. n. A banknote: usually with its amount: as, a five-dollar bill.
21. n. Paper issued by the authority and on the faith of a State to be circulated as money. The Constitution of the United States (Art. I. § 10) provides that no State shall emit bills of credit, or make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.
22. n. the sum to be paid;
23. n. two dates, namely, the date of drawing and a time for payment or the means of determining the time, as where the bill is payable at sight or a certain time after sight, that is, presentment;
24. n. the place where it is drawn. If the drawer and drawee are the same person, even in legal effect of name, as where a corporation by one officer draws on itself by naming another officer, as such, as the payee, the paper is not a bill of exchange, but a mere draft or promissory note. The drawer and the payee, however, may be the same, as where one draws to his own order and indorses to a third person. If the paper is not payable absolutely, as where it is expressed to be payable only out of a particular fund, it is not a bill of exchange; but a payment absolutely ordered may be directed to be charged to a particular account of the drawer. The words “value received” are usually inserted, but are not essential to validity. The drawee of a bill becomes liable by accepting it, usually done by writing his name across its face, and he is thereafter called the accepter; but a bill is negotiable before acceptance. In a foreign bill of exchange, the drawer and drawee are residents of different countries. In this respect, in the United States, the residents of the different States are foreign to one another.
25. n. A similar statement or declaration of personal rights in the constitution of a State of the American Union, and incorporated in the amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
26. n. A legislative bill appropriating an amount of money required to make up the deficiency of a previous appropriation which has proved inadequate.
27. To enter in a bill; make a bill or list of; charge or enter in an account for future payment: as, to bill goods or freight to a consignee; to bill passengers in a stage-coach; to bill a customer's purchases. See book, v. t.
28. To advertise by bill or public notice; announce on a play-bill: as, he was billed to appear as Othello.
29. n. A bellow or roar: applied to the boom of the bittern.
30. n. A headland: as, the bill of Portland (England).
31. To furnish or cover with bills or advertisements; placard: as, to bill the town.

Wiktionary

1. n. 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.
2. n. A cutting instrument, with hook-shaped point, and fitted with a handle, used in pruning, etc.; a billhook.
3. n. Somebody armed with a bill; a bill-man.
4. n. nautical The extremity of the arm of an anchor; the point of or beyond the fluke.
5. v. transitive To dig, chop, etc., with a bill.
6. n. The beak of a bird, especially when small or flattish; sometimes also used with reference to a turtle, platypus, or other animal.
7. n. A beak-like projection, especially a promontory.
8. v. obsolete To peck.
9. v. To stroke bill against bill, with reference to doves; to caress in fondness.
10. n. A written list or inventory. (Now obsolete except in specific senses or set phrases; bill of lading, bill of goods, etc.)
11. n. A document, originally sealed; a formal statement or official memorandum. (Now obsolete except with certain qualifying words; bill of health, bill of sale etc.)
12. n. A draft of a law, presented to a legislature for enactment; a proposed or projected law.
13. n. obsolete, law A declaration made in writing, stating some wrong the complainant has suffered from the defendant, or a fault committed by some person against a law.
14. n. US A piece of paper money; a banknote.
15. n. A written note of goods sold, services rendered, or work done, with the price or charge; an invoice.
16. n. A paper, written or printed, and posted up or given away, to advertise something, as a lecture, a play, or the sale of goods; a placard; a poster; a handbill.
17. n. A writing binding the signer or signers to pay a certain sum at a future day or on demand, with or without interest, as may be stated in the document. A bill of exchange. In the United States, it is usually called a note, a note of hand, or a promissory note.
18. v. transitive To advertise by a bill or public notice.
19. v. transitive To charge; to send a bill to.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A beak, as of a bird, or sometimes of a turtle or other animal.
2. v. obsolete To strike; to peck.
3. v. To join bills, as doves; to caress in fondness.
4. n. The bell, or boom, of the bittern.
5. n. A cutting instrument, with hook-shaped point, and fitted with a handle; -- used in pruning, etc.; a billhook. When short, called a hand bill, when long, a hedge bill.
6. n. A weapon of infantry, in the 14th and 15th centuries. A common form of bill consisted of a broad, heavy, double-edged, hook-shaped blade, having a short pike at the back and another at the top, and attached to the end of a long staff.
7. n. One who wields a bill; a billman.
8. n. obsolete A pickax, or mattock.
9. n. (Naut.) The extremity of the arm of an anchor; the point of or beyond the fluke.
10. v. To work upon ( as to dig, hoe, hack, or chop anything) with a bill.
11. n. (Law) A declaration made in writing, stating some wrong the complainant has suffered from the defendant, or a fault committed by some person against a law.
12. n. engraving A writing binding the signer or signers to pay a certain sum at a future day or on demand, with or without interest, as may be stated in the document.
13. n. A form or draft of a law, presented to a legislature for enactment; a proposed or projected law.
14. n. A paper, written or printed, and posted up or given away, to advertise something, as a lecture, a play, or the sale of goods; a placard; a poster; a handbill.
15. n. An account of goods sold, services rendered, or work done, with the price or charge; a statement of a creditor's claim, in gross or by items.
16. n. Any paper, containing a statement of particulars
17. v. To advertise by a bill or public notice.
18. v. To charge or enter in a bill.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the entertainment offered at a public presentation
2. v. advertise especially by posters or placards
3. n. a list of particulars (as a playbill or bill of fare)
4. n. a long-handled saw with a curved blade
5. n. an advertisement (usually printed on a page or in a leaflet) intended for wide distribution
6. n. horny projecting mouth of a bird
7. n. a sign posted in a public place as an advertisement
8. n. an itemized statement of money owed for goods shipped or services rendered
9. n. a statute in draft before it becomes law
10. v. demand payment
11. n. a piece of paper money (especially one issued by a central bank)
12. v. publicize or announce by placards
13. n. a brim that projects to the front to shade the eyes