Brown'-bill, n.

n. [From brown, on account of their being rusty, and bill, q. v.] A kind of battle-ax or halbert formerly used by the English foot-soldiers.

Many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan had been Cleft with a brown-bill. Shak.

The black, or, as it is sometimes called, the brown-bill, was a kind of halbert, the cutting part hooked like a woodman's bill, from the back of which projected a spike, and another from the head. Grose.