twibill

plural twibills · alternative twibil · alternative trybill · alternative twilbil · alternative twybil · alternative twyvil

1. businessA two-edged tool used in gate-type hurdle-making for cutting out mortises, with a flat chisel and a mortise chisel or hook, similar to the much larger French carpenter's tool, the besaiguë (or bisaiguë).
2. UKdialectalA mattock with one blade like an axe and the other like an adze.
3. EnglanddialectalA reaping hook, especially for cutting beans and peas.
4. obsoleteA double-bladed halberd or battle-axe.

   [A] little fair-haired man, as broad as he was tall, who heaved up a long “twybill,” or double axe.

   1866, Charles Kingsley, chapter 19, in Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 258