billet

Etymology 1

From Middle English bylet, from Anglo-Norman billette (“list, schedule”), from bille + -ette, from Latin bulla (“document”).

noun

1. A short informal letter.
2. A written order to quarter soldiers.
3. A sealed ticket for a draw or lottery.

Etymology 2

From Middle French billette (“schedule”), from bullette, diminutive form of bulle (“document”), from Medieval Latin bulla, hence cognate with etymology 1 above.

noun

1. A place where a soldier is assigned to lodge.
   17 June 1940: Prime Minister Pétain requests armistice. Germans use the Foucaults’ holiday home as officers’ billet. Foucault steals firewood for school from collaborationist militia. Foucault does well at school, but messes up his summer exams in 1940. 1997, Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault, Totem Books, Icon Books, page 9
2. Temporary lodgings in a private residence, such as is organised for members of a visiting sports team.
3. An allocated space or berth in a boat or ship.
4. (figurative) Berth; position.
   His shafts of satire fly straight to their billet, and there they rankle. 1897, Pall Mall Magazine

verb

1. (transitive, of a householder etc.) To lodge soldiers, or guests, usually by order.
   Destroy, with entire unpity, raze to the ground, those detestable houses where you billet the progeny of the libertinage of the poor, appalling cloacas, wherefrom there every day spews forth into society a swarm of new-made creatures […] 1965, Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and other Writings
2. (intransitive, of a soldier) To lodge, or be quartered, in a private house.
3. (transitive) To direct, by a ticket or note, where to lodge.

Etymology 3

From Middle English billet, bylet, belet, billette, from Old French billette, from bille (“log, tree trunk”), from Vulgar Latin *bilia, probably of Gaulish origin (compare Old Irish bile (“tree”)).

noun

1. (metallurgy) A semi-finished length of metal.
   The Saturday evening Cardiff-West Wales mail train is still steam-worked, but a most unlikely locomotive used on May 23 was Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 No. 45250 (5A); it returned on May 25 with a train of steel billets. 1964 July, “Motive Power Miscellany: Western Region”, in Modern Railways, page 70
2. A short piece of wood, especially one used as firewood.
3. A short cutting of sugar cane produced by a harvester or used for planting.
4. (heraldry) A rectangle used as a charge on an escutcheon.
5. (architecture) An ornament in Norman work, resembling a billet of wood, either square or round.
6. (saddlery) A strap that enters a buckle.
7. A loop that receives the end of a buckled strap.

Etymology 4

noun

1. Alternative form of billard (“coalfish”)