Bill·hook n.  A thick, heavy knife with a hooked point, used in pruning hedges, etc. When it has a short handle, it is sometimes called a hand bill; when the handle is long, a hedge bill or scimiter.

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 Hedge n.  A thicket of bushes, usually thorn bushes; especially, such a thicket planted as a fence between any two portions of land; and also any sort of shrubbery, as evergreens, planted in a line or as a fence; particularly, such a thicket planted round a field to fence it, or in rows to separate the parts of a garden.
    The roughest berry on the rudest hedge.   --Shak.
 Through the verdant maze
 Of sweetbrier hedges I pursue my walk.   --Thomson.
 Note: ☞ Hedge, when used adjectively or in composition, often means rustic, outlandish, illiterate, poor, or mean; as, hedge priest; hedgeborn, etc.
 Hedge bells, Hedge bindweed Bot., a climbing plant related to the morning-glory (Convolvulus sepium).
 Hedge bill, a long-handled billhook.
 Hedge garlic Bot., a plant of the genus Alliaria. See Garlic mustard, under Garlic.
 Hedge hyssop Bot., a bitter herb of the genus Gratiola, the leaves of which are emetic and purgative.
 Hedge marriage, a secret or clandestine marriage, especially one performed by a hedge priest. [Eng.]
 Hedge mustard Bot., a plant of the genus Sisymbrium, belonging to the Mustard family.
 Hedge nettle Bot., an herb, or under shrub, of the genus Stachys, belonging to the Mint family. It has a nettlelike appearance, though quite harmless.
 Hedge note. (a) The note of a hedge bird. (b) Low, contemptible writing. [Obs.] --Dryden.
 Hedge priest, a poor, illiterate priest. --Shak.
 Hedge school, an open-air school in the shelter of a hedge, in Ireland; a school for rustics.
 Hedge sparrow Zool., a European warbler (Accentor modularis) which frequents hedges. Its color is reddish brown, and ash; the wing coverts are tipped with white. Called also chanter, hedge warbler, dunnock, and doney.
 Hedge writer, an insignificant writer, or a writer of low, scurrilous stuff. [Obs.] --Swift.
 To breast up a hedge. See under Breast.
 To hang in the hedge, to be at a standstill. “While the business of money hangs in the hedge.”