billed

Billed is the past tense and past participle of the verb bill. In financial and commercial contexts, to bill someone is to issue a statement of charges for goods or services. A bill or invoice is sent to a customer, insurer, or other payer, and payment is expected by a specified due date. The term is used in many settings, including healthcare, utilities, retail, and professional services; examples include, “The hospital billed the insurer for the procedure” and “I was billed for the repair.”

In another sense, billed can describe an animal that possesses a bill (beak). In biology and ornithology, a creature described as billed has a visible or distinctive beak. This usage is common in field descriptions and taxonomic notes, where the shape or presence of a bill helps identify species. The term also appears in compound forms such as double-billed, referring to situations where two acts or performers are advertised together as part of a program.

Usage notes: despite sharing the same form, the financial sense of billed and the anatomical sense are distinct and determined by context. In everyday writing, billed typically appears in phrases related to invoicing, billing cycles, and accounts receivable, while its biological usage appears in descriptions of birds and other beaked animals.

See also: billing, invoice, accounts receivable, double-billed.