BILLET. (I) A small paper or "note," commonly used in the i8th and early 19th centuries as a "billet of invitation" (Fr. billet, diminutive of bilk, a writing). A particular use of the word is to denote an order issued to a soldier entitling him to quarters with a certain person (see BILLETING). From meaning the official order, the word billet came to be used of the quarters thus -ob tained, giving rise to such expressions as "a good billet." Another sense of the word is that of a voting-paper occurring in the 17th century with reference to the Act of Billets passed by the Scot tish parliament in 1662.
(2) A piece of wood roughly cylindrical, cut for use as fuel (Fr. billette or billot, diminutive of bille, the trunk of a tree). In mediaeval England it was used of the club or bludgeon which was the weapon proper to the serf. The name has been transferred to various objects of a similar shape, e.g. ingots of gold, or bars of iron or steel; and in heraldry (q.v.) to a bearing of rectangular shape. The term is applied in architecture to a form of ornamental moulding used in Norman and sometimes in Early English work. It resembles small billets of wood arranged at regular intervals in a sunk moulding. In early French architecture it sometimes forms the decoration of a string course.