billet

¹ American  

[bil-it] / ˈbɪl ɪt /

noun

1. lodging for a soldier, student, etc., as in a private home or nonmilitary public building.

2. Military. an official order, written or verbal, directing the person to whom it is addressed to provide such lodging.

3. a place assigned, as a bunk, berth, or the like, to a member of a ship's crew.

4. job; position; appointment.

5. Archaic. a written note, short letter, or the like.

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verb (used with object)

• billets,
  present (3rd person singular)
• billeted,
  past participle,  past
• billeting
  present participle

1. Military. to direct (a soldier) by ticket, note, or verbal order, where to lodge.

2. to provide lodging for; quarter.

   We arranged with the townspeople to billet the students.

verb (used without object)

• billets,
  present (3rd person singular)
• billeted,
  past participle,  past
• billeting
  present participle

1. to obtain lodging; stay.

   They billeted in youth hostels.

billet ² American  

[bil-it] / ˈbɪl ɪt /

noun

1. a small chunk of wood; a short section of a log, especially one cut for fuel.

2. Metalworking. a comparatively narrow, generally square, bar of steel, especially one rolled or forged from an ingot; a narrow bloom.

3. an iron or steel slab upon concrete, serving as a footing to a column.

4. Architecture. any of a series of closely spaced cylindrical objects, often in several rows, used as ornaments in a hollow molding or cornice.

5. a strap that passes through a buckle, as to connect the ends of a girth.

6. a pocket or loop for securing the end of a strap that has been buckled.

7. thumbpiece.

8. Heraldry. a small, rectangular figure with the longer sides generally vertical, said to represent a block of wood.

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billet ¹ British  

/ ˈbɪlɪt /

noun

1. accommodation, esp for a soldier, in civilian lodgings

2. the official requisition for such lodgings

3. a space or berth allocated, esp for slinging a hammock, in a ship

4. informal a job

5. archaic a brief letter or document

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verb

1. (tr) to assign a lodging to (a soldier)

2. informal (tr) to assign to a post or job

3. to lodge or be lodged

billet ² British  

/ ˈbɪlɪt /

noun

1. a chunk of wood, esp for fuel

2. metallurgy

   1. a metal bar of square or circular cross section

   2. an ingot cast into the shape of a prism

3. architect a carved ornament in a moulding, with short cylinders or blocks evenly spaced

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• billetee
  noun
• billeter
  noun
• unbilleted
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• billeting
  present
• billeted
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• billet
  simple
• billets
  simple
• have billeted
  perfect
• has billeted
  perfect
• am billeting
  progressive
• are billeting
  progressive
• is billeting
  progressive
• have been billeting
  perfect progressive
• has been billeting
  perfect progressive

Past

• billeted
  simple
• had billeted
  perfect
• was billeting
  progressive
• were billeting
  progressive
• had been billeting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will billet
  simple
• will have billeted
  perfect
• will be billeting
  progressive
• will have been billeting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of billet¹

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English billet, bylet “official register; record,” from Anglo-French, Old French billette, variant of Old French bullette, equivalent to bulle bill ¹ + -ette -ette

Origin of billet²

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English billet, bylet, from Old French billette, equivalent to bille “log, tree trunk” (from unrecorded Gaulish bilia “tree trunk”; compare Old Irish bile “landmark tree”) + -ette -ette

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

billet billets billeted billeting

Hundreds of them marched — marched — down from Northern California to this new billet.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2024

The spot premium for low-carbon billet, a fabricated product often used in construction, has slid to zero from $30 a tonne in January, he said.

From Reuters ● Dec. 17, 2022

Some critics dubbed her the border czar — a title she has resoundingly rejected, insisting her billet stops south of the border.

From Washington Times ● Dec. 13, 2021

“When he was here, we would go for drives and he would sing, he would dance, he would laugh,” said his billet mom, Kim Pagé.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 9, 2021

“We don’t know. The regiment arrived yesterday and commandeered every billet, every scrap of food, and every ship in the town. They’d have had this boat, too, if you hadn’t taken it.”

From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman

But outfoxing competition from the private sector has proven elusive, particularly in cybersecurity jobs, even though the military offers tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses for such billets.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 21, 2022

Several women have completed the grueling training for elite special operations billets.

From Washington Times ● Aug. 9, 2021

Later, Gerdau will move the billets into a furnace where they will be heated to more than 2,000 degrees and softened so they can be rerolled, “like Play-Doh,” into products, Mr. Skelley said.

From New York Times ● Jul. 24, 2018

Mattis preferred to be close to the fighting, saying he disdains "chateau generals," a World War I phrase for commanders who stayed in comfortable billets while their troops fought in the trenches.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2016

Underneath were the ashes of a fire and blackened billets of wood.

From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

Grey Zone, a Telegram channel linked to the Wagner mercenary outfit, said that around 500 men were billeted in the complex.

From Reuters ● Jan. 3, 2023

We were billeted in the same bunk room, and, after a dinner of polenta, sausage, wild mushrooms, a cabbage salad and strudel, they showed me the route they would take to Venice.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 26, 2022

It was here that Louis XIV's soldiers were billeted during the persecution of the Protestant Huguenots - ancestors of the modern population - in the 17th Century.

From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2021

American troops have been sent to relieve the British garrison protecting this neutral nation, and United States counterintelligence agents are already billeted at the old leper hospital.

From New York Times ● May 25, 2018

The five hundred marines, billeted all about North Square, arrived at double-quick.

From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes

“No one will be assigned billeting in any unit until all safety and habitability standards are met,” he said.

From New York Times ● Sep. 16, 2022

I went to a desert staging ground to hear a brigadier general talk about unsexy stuff — how to move an army, the basics of feeding, billeting, equipping, transporting.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 29, 2021

Midwife Edith Smith came to Grantham in 1915 to help tackle prostitution after the billeting of 14,000 soldiers in the area during World War One.

From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2014

“Unfortunately, they were engineering personnel and they were building billeting for the A.N.A.”

From New York Times ● Jan. 8, 2013

Exemption from billeting was an ancient privilege of postmasters.

From The History of the Post Office in British North America by Sir William Smith