Definition
nounA small document that acts as proof of something, often thereby granting the holder some ability.
nounA small document that acts as proof of something, often thereby granting the holder some ability., A pass entitling the holder to admission to a show, concert, sporting event, etc.
Sentence Examples
I told them to send me another ticket.
Don't forget the ticket.
Insert coins into the slot and press for a ticket.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from Middle Scots tikkat, tikket, from Middle French etiquet m, estiquet m, and etiquette f, estiquette f (“a bill, note, label, ticket”), from Old French estechier, estichier, estequier (“to attach, stick”), (compare Picard estiquier (“to stick, pierce”)), from Frankish *stikkjan, *stekan (“to stick, pierce, sting”), from Proto-Germanic *stikaną, *stikōną, *staikijaną (“to be sharp, pierce, prick”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teyg- (“to be sharp, to stab”). Doublet of etiquette. More at stick.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The variety of the demands of the railways for staff is almost endless. They require men with master's tickets as dock masters and to command their steamships."
— 1942 July-August, T. F. Cameron, “How the Staff of a Railway is Recruited”, in Railway Magazine, page 207:
""Here's the ticket. This hole's big enough for Jim to get through if we wrench off the board.""
— 1884, Mark Twain, chapter 34, in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, →ISBN:
""Yeah." It was him, alright; if the world's weariest pair of workboots hadn't tipped her off, his world-weary voice certainly would have. "Where were you?"
"My quarters. We've got a full ticket set today, and techs work best without oversight." Neither of these things was untrue, though the curation was more than a little dishonest.
"Maybe yours do." Nascimbeni rolled out, back flat against a neon orange creeper, and sat up with an audible wince. "Mine fuck the dog.""
— 2022 September 19, HarryBlank, “Beyond Repair”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 15 Sep 2024:
"Candidates like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders are no longer too precious to run on the Democratic ticket, though the proposals they suggest are so ambitious — like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and free public college — that they don’t feel like compromises at all."
— 2019 March 3, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, “When Did Everyone Become a Socialist?”, in New York Magazine:
"Harris’s victory comes 55 years after the Voting Rights Act abolished laws that disenfranchised Black Americans, 36 years after the first woman ran on a presidential ticket and four years after Democrats were devastated by the defeat of Hillary Clinton"
— 2020 November 7, Chelsea Janes, “Kamala Harris, daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, elected nation’s first female vice president”, in Washington Post: