billy cart

noun

A rudimentary child's cart; a soapbox car.

Meanings

nounbilly cart (plural billy carts)

plural billy carts · alternative billy-cart

  1. AustraliaUKA rudimentary child's cart; a soapbox car.

    It was in the billy cart, I suppose, that I had my first-ever races.

    2004, Jack Brabham, Doug Nye, The Jack Brabham Story, page 19
    3 more examples

    1954 December, Rotary Reporter: Brief Items on Club Activities around the World, The Rotarian, page 38, Whether you call them billy carts or soap-box racers, they're one and the same: homemade, four-wheeled, motorless racers that depend on a downhill course for their speed. […] In Coffs Harbour, Australia, for example, the Rotary Club recently held its third annual Billy Cart Derby for cars in two divisions: homemade racers and special championship cars.

    A few wheels and a crate to make a billy cart would probably be acceptable, or the odd old alarm clock, but nothing more.

    2006, Alan Greenhalgh, Gathers No Moss, page 20

    The kids wanted a hole put in a piece of piping to make an axle for a billy-cart, but we had no drill, so Mac stood the steel pipe up against a gum tree, up with the rifle and shot a hole clean through it. The kids were delighted - they put a bolt through and screwed the nut in place and they had a billy-cart.

    2007, Ruby Langford Ginibi, Don't Take Your Love to Town, page 98

Origin

From billy (“male goat”) + cart, referring to the former practice of hitching a cart behind a large goat.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

billy cart. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/billy%20cart

MLA

“billy cart.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/billy%20cart. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “billy cart,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/billy%20cart.

Source: billy cart on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.