What does billycock mean?
A billycock is a man's hat made of stiff, hardened felt, with a rounded dome-like crown and a narrow brim curved up at the sides — the garment now almost universally known in Britain as a bowler hat and in America as a derby. The word combines Billy, a familiar diminutive of William, with cock, an old term for a hat or cap, and it flourished in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century English, when such hats were the standard headwear of businessmen, clerks, and officials. Today billycock survives mainly as a period term: it appears in historical novels, memoirs, museum catalogues, and descriptions of Victorian dress, lending a touch of era-specific colour that the plain word bowler does not carry. Writers who want their prose to evoke cobblestoned streets, frock coats, and hansom cabs may still reach for it, but readers should understand it simply as an older synonym for the classic round-crowned felt hat rather than a distinct style of its own.
nounA billycock is a man's hard felt hat with a rounded crown and a narrow curved brim; it is an older, chiefly British name for what is now usually called a bowler hat.
- A man's hard felt hat with a dome-shaped crown and narrow brim, known today chiefly as a bowler or derby.
"The old photograph showed a line of city clerks in dark suits and glossy black billycocks."
"He tipped his billycock politely as the funeral procession passed."
"In the painting, every gentleman in the crowd wears a sombre black billycock."
Regular plural, used when referring to multiple such hats.
"The cloakroom held a row of umbrellas and dripping billycocks."
Before everyone called it a bowler, this stiff-crowned hat was nicknamed after 'Billy' — as in plain old Bill.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of billycock
Billycock arose in British English, probably in the first half of the nineteenth century, from the personal name Billy, a diminutive of William, combined with cock, an older word for a hat. It was the everyday vernacular name for the stiff felt hat later standardised as the bowler, which was created in London in the mid-nineteenth century. The American counterpart term is derby, while billycock itself gradually fell out of use and now survives mainly in historical contexts.
Usage notes
Billycock is now dated and chiefly encountered in historical writing or fiction set in the Victorian and Edwardian eras; in contemporary usage, bowler or bowler hat is the normal term.
Don't confuse with
Bowler is the standard modern British term for the same hat, while billycock is the older, now largely historical synonym.