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Word of the Day Archive
Thursday August 30, 2001

billet \BIL-it\, noun:
1. Lodging for soldiers.
2. An official order directing that a soldier be provided with lodging.
3. A position of employment; a job.

transitive verb:
1. To quarter, or place in lodgings.
2. To serve (a person) with an official order to provide lodging for soldiers.

intransitive verb:
1. To be quartered; to lodge.

When he was well enough, he was retrieved back to his billet in the American zone.
-- Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War

Louisa stayed at the hospital to be near him, while the younger children were billeted at a nearby house with their Irish governess.
-- Douglas Botting, Gerald Durrell

We arrived jet-lagged at Tan Son Nhut airport where someone met us and hurried us off to wherever we were billeted, usually a villa on one of the wide residential boulevards that reminded everyone of a French provincial city.
-- Ward Just, A Dangerous Friend

Billet is from Medieval French billette, from Old French bullette, diminutive of bulle, "a document," from Medieval Latin bulla, "a document."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for billet