Tick″et (?), n. [F. étiquette a label, ticket, fr. OF. estiquette, or OF. etiquet, estiquet; both of Teutonic origin, and akin to E. stick. See Stick, n. & v., and cf. Etiquette, Tick credit.] A small piece of paper, cardboard, or the like, serving as a notice, certificate, or distinguishing token of something. Specifically: —
(a) A little note or notice.
He constantly read his lectures twice a week for above forty years, giving notice of the time to his auditors in a ticket on the school doors. Fuller.
(b) A tradesman's bill or account.
☞ Hence the phrase on ticket, on account; whence, by abbreviation, came the phrase on tick. See 1st Tick.
Your courtier is mad to take up silks and velvets
On ticket for his mistress. J. Cotgrave.
(c) A certificate or token of right of admission to a place of assembly, or of passage in a public conveyance; as, a theater ticket; a railroad or steamboat ticket.
(d) A label to show the character or price of goods.
(e) A certificate or token of a share in a lottery or other scheme for distributing money, goods, or the like.
(f) (Politics) A printed list of candidates to be voted for at an election; a set of nominations by one party for election; a ballot.
The old ticket forever! We have it by thirty-four votes. Sarah Franklin (1766).
Scratched ticket, a ticket from which the names of one or more of the candidates are scratched out. — Split ticket, a ticket representing different divisions of a party, or containing candidates selected from two or more parties. — Straight ticket, a ticket containing the regular nominations of a party, without change. — Ticket day(Com.), the day before the settling or pay day on the stock exchange, when the names of the actual purchasers are rendered in by one stockbroker to another. Simmonds. — Ticket of leave, a license or permit given to a convict, or prisoner of the crown, to go at large, and to labor for himself before the expiration of his sentence, subject to certain specific conditions. Simmonds. — Ticket porter, a licensed porter wearing a badge by which he may be identified.