bilbo

Etymology

It is from Spanish Bilbao, the name of a town in northern Spain, long written “Bilboa” in English, which was noted for its finely tempered sword blades.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} The OED notes that Blount gave this derivation in 1656, and that a marginal note to Drayton's “Agincourt” (1631) calls “Bilbow blades” blades of the best temper; it compares the Damascus and Toledo blades,^[2] and Klein compares bayonet for the sense development.^[8] Skeat derived both the sword and the fetters called bilboes from the town, which was famous for its iron and steel.^[9] For the fetters the derivation is less certain: they are usually said to be named after Bilbao because many were made there and carried on the Spanish Armada to hold English prisoners, but the OED calls the origin uncertain, since the word is recorded in English some years before 1588.^[2] Merriam-Webster gives the earlier form “bilbowe” and takes it as perhaps from the name of the town,^[4][10] while Random House and the American Heritage Dictionary leave this sense of unknown origin.^[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A long iron bar with sliding shackles for the ankles of prisoners: Random House dates the word in this sense, earlier spelled “bilbow”, to 1550–1560;^[11][13] the OED's first record is from before 1584, in an account by S. Borough printed in Hakluyt's Principall Navigations (1589).^[2] The Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the sword to 1565,^[4] Random House to 1585–1595.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor has Falstaff, packed into a basket, "compassed like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point";^[14][15][16] the OED takes its first quotation for the sword from this play (1602), which Green's Dictionary of Slang dates about 1597.^[2][16] The same play calls a man a "latten bilbo", which the OED and Skeat's Tudor glossary take, doubtfully, as one who carries such a sword.^[2][17] From 1676 Bilbo was used as the personified name of a sword, especially that of a bully or swashbuckler,^[2] and Congreve's Old Bachelor (1693) has the phrase bilbo's the word, meaning it is time to fight.^[2][16] Canting dictionaries from about 1698 to Grose recorded bilboa as thieves' slang for a sword,^[16] and Johnson (1755) defined the word as "a rapier; a sword", saying it was corrupted from Bilboa.^[14] Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book (1867) calls it an old term for a flexible cutlass,^[18] and the sword sense is now historical.^[2][7] The fetters were used especially on board ship,^[4] and in 1756 Green records the verb to bilbo, to put a person in shackles.^[16]

Timeline

• 1550–1560 – a long iron bar with sliding shackles to hold prisoners' ankles, earlier spelled “bilbow”.^[11][13] The OED's first record is from before 1584.^[2]
• 1565 – a sword with a finely tempered, elastic blade.^[4] The OED's first quotation is from Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor (1602), dated about 1597 by Green's Dictionary of Slang.^[2][16]
• 1676 – the personified name of a sword, especially a bully's.^[2]
• 1693 – bilbo's the word, it is time to fight.^[2][16]
• 1756 – verb, to put in shackles.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A sword with a finely tempered, elastic blade.^[2][4][5][7]
2. A long iron bar with sliding shackles and a lock at one end, used to confine the ankles of prisoners, especially on board ship; often in the plural, bilboes.^[4][2][9]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
11. ^ a b c d Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Brewer, E. Cobham (1898), Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, new ed., London: Cassell
16. ^ a b c d e f g h Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ Skeat, Walter W.; Mayhew, A. L. (1914), A Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, Oxford: Clarendon Press
18. ^ Smyth, W. H. (1867), The Sailor's Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, London: Blackie and Son