different between billet vs pozzy

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, General American) IPA^(key): /?b?l?t/
• Rhymes: -?l?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English bylet, from Anglo-Norman billette (“list, schedule”), from bille +? -ette, from Latin bulla (“document”).

Noun

billet (plural billets)

1. A short informal letter.
2. A written order to quarter soldiers.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle French billette (“schedule”), from bullette, diminutive form of bulle (“document”), from Medieval Latin bulla, hence cognate with etymology 1 above.

Noun

billet (plural billets)

1. A place where a soldier is assigned to lodge.
   • 1997, Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault, page 9 (Totem Books, Icon Books; ?ISBN

     17 June 1940: Prime Minister Pétain requests armistice. Germans use the Foucaults’ holiday home as officers’ billet. Foucault steals firewood for school from collaborationist militia. Foucault does well at school, but messes up his summer exams in 1940.

2. An allocated space or berth in a boat or ship.
3. (figuratively) Berth; position.
   • 1897, Pall Mall Magazine

     His shafts of satire fly straight to their billet, and there they rankle.

Verb

billet (third-person singular simple present billets, present participle billeting or billetting, simple past and past participle billeted or billetted)

1. (transitive, of a householder etc.) To lodge soldiers, or guests, usually by order.

   • Billeted in so antiquated a mansion.
2. (intransitive, of a soldier) To lodge, or be quartered, in a private house.
3. (transitive) To direct, by a ticket or note, where to lodge.

Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English billet, bylet, belet, billette, from Old French billette, from bille (“log, tree trunk”), from Vulgar Latin *bilia, probably of Gaulish origin (compare Old Irish bile (“tree”)).

Noun

billet (plural billets)

1. (metallurgy) A semi-finished length of metal.
2. A short piece of wood, especially one used as firewood.
3. A short cutting of sugar cane produced by a harvester or used for planting.
4. (heraldry) A rectangle used as a charge on an escutcheon.
5. (architecture) An ornament in Norman work, resembling a billet of wood, either square or round.
6. (saddlery) A strap that enters a buckle.
7. A loop that receives the end of a buckled strap.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

Translations

Etymology 4

Noun

billet (plural billets)

1. Alternative form of billard (“coalfish”)

Anagrams

• LIBlet, Litbel

Danish

Etymology

From French billet.

Noun

billet c (singular definite billetten, plural indefinite billetter)

1. ticket (admission to entertainment, pass for transportation)

Inflection

Further reading

• “billet” in Den Danske Ordbog

French

Etymology

From Old French billette, from Latin bulla. See French boulette.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bi.j?/

Noun

billet m (plural billets)

1. ticket
2. note, a brief message
3. (short for billet de banque) banknote

Derived terms

• distributeur de billets

Related terms

• billet de banque (bank note)
• billet-doux
• billette
• billetterie
• billetiste

Descendants

Further reading

• “billet” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?.zi/
• Rhymes: -?zi

Etymology 1

Unclear, perhaps from a southern African language; from late 19thC, revived during World War I.

Noun

pozzy (uncountable)

1. (Britain, military slang) Jam (“fruit conserve made from fruit boiled with sugar”).
   • 1929, Frederic Manning, The Middle Parts of Fortune, Vintage 2014, p. 136:

     ‘Could you pinch a tin of pozzy out of stores?’

Derived terms

• pozzy-wallah

Etymology 2

From position +? -y (“diminutive suffix”), with spelling shift; variant of possie.

Alternative forms

• possie

Noun

pozzy (plural pozzies)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, military slang, Digger slang) A firing position.
   • 1916, various ANZAC soldiers, The Anzac Book, page 10,

     […] and Jerry O?Dwyer had shot two crows from the new sniper?s pozzy down at the creek-—and so on.

   • 1942, Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Volume III: The Australian Imperial Force in France, 1916, 13th(?) Edition, page 340,

     Brown himself, unaware even that there was an officer among his captives, picked up his rifle, went back to his “pozzy,” and dismissed the incident from his mind […]

   • 1975, William D. Joynt, Saving the Channel Ports, 1918, page 84,

     They had also wonderful confidence in their leaders — they knew the best pozzy would be taken up.

2. (Australia, New Zealand, colloquial) A position or place, especially one that is advantageous.
   • 1971, Herman Charles Bosman, Cold Stone Jug, page 36,

     So I says to him, no, I can?t go back to the pozzy I?m sharing with Snowy Fisher and the late Pap.

   • 2006, Pip Wilson, Faces in the Street: Louisa and Henry Lawson and the Castlereagh Street Push, page 62,

     Stretching his legs has been good for him, and this Pitt-street pozzy near the GPO is a splendid spot for a sandwich and a good book.