ticket
Americannoun
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tickets
plural
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a slip, usually of paper or cardboard, serving as evidence that the holder has paid a fare or admission or is entitled to some service, right, or the like.
a railroad ticket; a theater ticket.
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a summons issued for a traffic or parking violation.
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a written or printed slip of paper, cardboard, etc., affixed to something to indicate its nature, price, or the like; label or tag.
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a slate of candidates nominated by a particular party or faction and running together in an election.
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the license of a ship's officer or of an aviation pilot.
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Banking. a preliminary recording of transactions prior to their entry in more permanent books of account.
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Informal. the proper or advisable thing.
That's the ticket! Warm milk and toast is just the ticket for you.
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Archaic. a placard.
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Obsolete. a short note, notice, or memorandum.
verb (used with object)
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tickets,
present (3rd person singular)
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ticketed,
past participle, past
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ticketing
present participle
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to attach a ticket to; distinguish by means of a ticket; label.
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to furnish with a ticket, as on the railroad.
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to serve with a summons for a traffic or parking violation.
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to attach such a summons to.
to ticket illegally parked cars.
idioms
noun
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a piece of paper, cardboard, etc, showing that the holder is entitled to certain rights, such as travel on a train or bus, entry to a place of public entertainment, etc
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(modifier) concerned with or relating to the issue, sale, or checking of tickets
a ticket office
ticket collector
-
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a piece of card, cloth, etc, attached to an article showing information such as its price, size, or washing instructions
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a summons served for a parking offence or violation of traffic regulations
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informal the certificate of competence issued to a ship's captain or an aircraft pilot
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the group of candidates nominated by one party in an election; slate
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the declared policy of a political party at an election
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informal a certificate of discharge from the armed forces
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informal the right or appropriate thing
that's the ticket
-
informal to be conceited
verb
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to issue or attach a ticket or tickets to
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informal to earmark for a particular purpose
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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ticketsimple
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ticketssimple
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have ticketedperfect
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has ticketedperfect
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am ticketingprogressive
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are ticketingprogressive
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is ticketingprogressive
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have been ticketingperfect progressive
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has been ticketingperfect progressive
Past
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ticketedsimple
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had ticketedperfect
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was ticketingprogressive
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were ticketingprogressive
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had been ticketingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of ticket
1520–30; 1925–30 ticket for def. 4; earlier tiket < Middle French etiquet memorandum. See etiquette
Explanation
A ticket is the slip of paper or card you need to be admitted to a movie theater, a museum, or an airplane. Your ticket proves that you've paid or been invited. Other types of tickets include the ones you get as a receipt or bill, and the kind a traffic officer hands you when you're caught driving 40 miles per hour in a 30 MPH zone. In the U.S., ticket is also used to mean "ballot," as in "I'm not excited either of the candidates on that party's ticket." If someone tells you "That's the ticket!", they mean you've made exactly the right choice.
Vocabulary lists containing ticket
U.S. Government - Introductory
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U.S. Government - Middle School and High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Around the same time, the ticket machines were proving similarly unreliable about accepting credit cards.
From Salon ● Oct. 17, 2026
Guests get an address when they buy a ticket.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
In a message to ticket holders on Monday morning, Yorkshire Wildlife Park said anyone with a booking would be contacted within the next five days to reschedule.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
He’s reminding them who their meal ticket is.
From Slate ● Oct. 10, 2026
When the ticket collector came through, Aunt Kate emerged into the aisle and handed him exactly what he needed, so he didn’t even bother to draw back the curtain and peek at the others.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
A decade later—after stints at Meta Platforms and a startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz—Alfozan allegedly booked one-way plane tickets from San Francisco to Saudi Arabia for himself, his spouse and a family member.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
A settlement reached last week requires the NGO to stop selling additional flights as part of the programme, while allowing previously purchased tickets to remain valid.
From Barron's ● Oct. 14, 2026
Send your favorite money tip for saving on anything from gas and groceries to plane tickets to [email protected], and we’ll share it in next week’s newsletter.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026
The team hasn’t announced where their home games in the series will be played, and tickets for the games in Atlanta have yet to go on sale.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026
We could not afford tickets but there was a stage door at the side of the concert hall through which sounds came clearly.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Then in the evening, in a separately ticketed event, Disney Hall welcomes film composer extraordinaire Michael Giacchino for a double feature.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
Orange County records show Wehr had been ticketed for more than a dozen vehicle code violations beginning in 2017.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2026
It has since become the biggest ticketed tourist attraction in Tennessee, receiving about four million visitors per year.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
It launched a sub-brand called D&B Unlocked, a ticketed event discovery platform in which guests can sift through upcoming nightlife offerings at their local arcade.
From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2026
To put England’s advance in context, it would be over a century before music-mad Vienna had similarly open-to-all, ticketed public concerts.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
Supporters regularly have to queue for hours to purchase match tickets at the stadium's small box office as Rayo is the only top-flight Spanish club without a ticketing website.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
The Menlo Park-based firm’s six-person investment and research team comes from strategic finance backgrounds and includes alumni from Palantir, restaurant-management software provider Toast and online ticketing platform StubHub, Fogelsong said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
“Allowing the outside organizer to retain control over ticketing limited UVU’s ability to obtain reliable attendance projections, monitor crowd-growth expectations and align staffing and security resources with anticipated attendance,” the report said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
This would all be pretty underwhelming were it not for the ticketing issues instigated by the club's touting crackdown that has annoyed so many in the fanbase.
From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2026
In fact, for two years hand-running, almost daily, and in spite of the three-legged shepherd’s fang-baring snarls, Bernabe had been ticketing Onofre’s perambulating junk heap.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
