billet
noun
[ ˈbɪlɪt ]
• a place, especially a civilian's house, where soldiers are lodged temporarily.
• "the sergeant gave them leave to rest while officers went in search of billets"
billet
verb
• lodge (soldiers) in a particular place, especially a civilian's house.
• "most of the army was billeted within the town"
Origin:
late Middle English (originally denoting a short written document): from Anglo-Norman French billette, diminutive of bille (see bill1). The verb is recorded in the late 16th century, and the noun sense, ‘a written order requiring a householder to lodge the bearer, usually a soldier’, from the mid 17th century; hence the current meaning.
billet
noun
• a thick piece of wood.
• each of a series of short cylindrical pieces inserted at intervals in Norman decorative mouldings.
• a rectangle placed vertically as a charge.
Origin:
late Middle English: from Old French billette and billot, diminutives of bille ‘tree trunk’, from medieval Latin billa, billus ‘branch, trunk’, probably of Celtic origin.
