billet

noun

1. A short informal letter.

   “However, when his cool reflections returned, he plainly perceived that his case was neither mended nor altered by Sophia's billet[…]”

   “On their return home, however, she was greatly consoled by Lady Mandeville's reading aloud a billet from Edward Lorraine, regretting that unexpected business,...”

2. A written order to quarter soldiers.
3. A sealed ticket for a draw or lottery.
4. A place where a soldier is assigned to lodge.

   “Nothing was too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common welfare. Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally visited dust-bins and back premises, accompanied by a sort of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer doing billets.”

   “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.”

5. Temporary lodgings in a private residence, such as is organised for members of a visiting sports team.
6. An allocated space or berth in a boat or ship.

   “The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy.”

7. (figuratively)Berth; position.

   “His shafts of satire fly straight to their billet, and there they rankle.”

   “The blind man laughed and a substantial coin found its billet in the caretaker's never-reluctant palm.”

8. 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.”

9. A short piece of wood, especially one used as firewood.

   “They shall beat out my brains with billets.”

   “I cannot part your hair on my knee, fetch a billet of wood.”

10. A short cutting of sugar cane produced by a harvester or used for planting.
11. A rectangle used as a charge on an escutcheon.
12. An ornament in Norman work, resembling a billet of wood, either square or round.
13. A strap that enters a buckle.
14. A loop that receives the end of a buckled strap.
15. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of billard (“coalfish”).

verb

1. (transitive)To lodge soldiers, or guests, usually by order.

   “Billeted in so antiquated a mansion.”

   “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 […]”

2. (intransitive)To lodge, or be quartered, in a private house.
3. (transitive)To direct, by a ticket or note, where to lodge.