billet

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
billet1

▶noun a civilian house where soldiers are lodged temporarily. ▶verb (billets, billeting, billeted) lodge (soldiers) in a civilian house.

– origin ME (orig. denoting a short written document, later a written order requiring a householder to lodge the bearer): from Anglo-Norman Fr. billette, dimin. of bille (see bill1).

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
billet2

▶noun

• 1 a thick piece of wood.

  ■ a small bar of metal for further processing.

• 2 Architecture each of a series of short cylindrical pieces inserted at intervals in Norman decorative mouldings.

• 3 Heraldry a rectangle placed vertically as a charge.

– origin ME: from OFr. billette and billot, diminutives of bille ‘tree trunk’, from med. L. billa, billus ‘branch, trunk’, prob. of Celtic origin.