bill [ME] There are several different bills in English. The one you pay is from Anglo-Norman bile, which probably comes from Latin bulla ‘sealed document’ (see bull). During the Middle Ages a bill was any written statement or list, an early sense that survives in a clean bill of health [M17th]. The master of a ship about to sail from a port where various infectious diseases were known to be common would be given an official certificate before leaving, to confirm that there was no infection either on board the ship or in the port. See also bulletin. A bird’s bill [OE] is of uncertain origin but may be related to another Old English bill, originally a type of sword, but later a pike, which is also the source of the billhook [E17th] used for cutting hedges. The Old Bill is British slang for the police, with the first written evidence arriving in the 1950s. The original Old Bill was a cartoon character of the First World War, portrayed as a grumbling Cockney soldier with a walrus moustache. The ‘police’ meaning may have arisen from subsequent use of the cartoon character, this time wearing police uniform, on posters in a Metropolitan Police recruitment campaign, and then during the Second World War giving advice on wartime security. Police officers before the Second World War often wore ‘Old Bill’ moustaches, and this could provide another connection.