Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To direct (a soldier) by a ticket or note where to lodge; hence, to quarter or place in lodgings, as soldiers in private houses.
  • To be quartered; lodge: specifically applied to soldiers.
  • noun A local English name of the coal-fish, especially when one year old.
  • noun A small stick of wood; especially, a stick of wood cut for fuel.
  • noun In heraldry, a bearing in the form of a small rectangle, usually set with the long sides vertical.
  • noun In architecture: An ornament much used in early medieval work, consisting of an imitation of a wooden billet, or a small section of a rod, of which a series are placed at regular intervals in or upon a molding, usually a concave molding. See cut under billet-molding.
  • noun A checker.
  • noun A short strap used for connecting various straps and portions of a harness.
  • noun A pocket or loop into which the end of a strap is inserted after passing through a buckle.
  • noun A small bloom; a short bar of iron or steel, with a square section, and of smaller size than an ordinary “pile.”
  • noun A small paper or note in writing; a short letter or document.
  • noun A ticket given by a billet-master or other officer directing the person to whom it is addressed to provide board and lodging for the soldier bearing it.
  • noun Hence The place where a soldier is lodged; lodging; accommodation.
  • noun The place (marked by a numbered hammock-hook) assigned to each of the crew of a man-of-war for slinging his hammock.
  • noun Hence A place, situation, position, or appointment: as, he is looking for a billet.
  • noun A ballot or voting-paper.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb (Mil.) To direct, by a ticket or note, where to lodge. Hence: To quarter, or place in lodgings, as soldiers in private houses.
  • noun A small paper; a note; a short letter.
  • noun A ticket from a public officer directing soldiers at what house to lodge.
  • noun colloq. Quarters or place to which one is assigned, as by a billet or ticket; berth; position. Also used fig.
  • noun A small stick of wood, as for firewood.
  • noun (Metal.) A short bar of metal, as of gold or iron.
  • noun (Arch.) An ornament in Norman work, resembling a billet of wood either square or round.
  • noun A strap which enters a buckle.
  • noun A loop which receives the end of a buckled strap.
  • noun (Her.) A bearing in the form of an oblong rectangle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A short informal letter.
  • noun A written order to quarter soldiers.
  • noun a place where a soldier is assigned to lodge
  • verb of a householder, etc. to lodge soldiers, usually by order
  • verb of a soldier to lodge, or be quartered, in a private house
  • noun metallurgy a semi-finished length of metal
  • noun a short piece of wood, especially one used as firewood
  • noun heraldry A rectangle used as a charge on an escutcheon
  • noun architecture An ornament in Norman work, resembling a billet of wood either square or round.
  • noun A strap which enters a buckle.
  • noun A loop which receives the end of a buckled strap.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a short personal letter
  • verb provide housing for (military personnel)
  • noun a job in an organization
  • noun lodging for military personnel (especially in a private home)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle French billette ("schedule"), from bullette, diminutive form of bulle ("document"), from Medieval Latin bulla ("document").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French billette, from bille ("log, tree trunk"), from Vulgar Latin *bilia, possible of Celtic origin (compare Old Irish oir ("tree")).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English bylet.

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Examples

  • But poetry — do you know how Vaughn Marlow makes his living? — teaching in a boys 'cramming-joint down in Pennsylvania, and of all private little hells such a billet is the limit.

    Chapter 32 2010

  • - teaching in a boys 'cramming-joint down in Pennsylvania, and of all private little hells such a billet is the limit.

    Chapter 32 1908

  • I know, I know, the Teheran embassy wasn’t built in a day, but it still seems like Ross’s would-be billet is an odd bureaucratic entity.

    Her Family And Friends Treated Him Like An Ambassador | ATTACKERMAN 2009

  • No, you must play underhand with me, knowing that this billet was the one chance for me to get on my feet again.

    Bunches of Knuckles 2010

  • Peter had asked to take the lead shortly before the accident occurred and Scott was giving him a billet -- a billet is a climbers way of securing another climber to the mountain in case of a fall.

    CNN Transcript May 19, 2004 2004

  • My billet is a shelf space half a meter wide, half a meter deep, and just a trifle longer than I am-with other females brushing my elbows on each side of me.

    Podkayne Of Mars Heinlein, Robert A. 1963

  • The billet was a scrap on which was written only --

    The False Chevalier or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette William Douw Lighthall

  • Our billet is a village with shell-scarred trees lining its streets, and grass peeping over its fallen masonry, a few inn signs still swing and look like corpses hanging; at night they creak as if in agony.

    The Red Horizon Patrick MacGill 1926

  • Behind our billet was the open country where Nature, the great mother, was busy; the butterflies flitted over the soldiers '(p. 262) graves, the grass grew over unburied dead men, who seemed to be sinking into the ground, apple trees threw out a wealth of blossom which the breezes flung broadcast to earth like young lives in the whirlwind of war.

    The Red Horizon Patrick MacGill 1926

  • Our billet was a farm just on the edge of the village.

    Introduction to the Science of Sociology Robert Ezra Park 1926

Comments

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  • Please refrain from charging my escutcheon with your rectangle.

    December 22, 2015