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billet n SMYTH 101 for sense 1; cp OED ~ sb2, EDD
sb1 1 for sense 2.
1 Small wood used for dunnage
on a vessel.
1877 ROCHFORT 69 Billets or Brush Wood, used for the
purpose of stowage.
2 A length of birch, usu unsplit, cut
for fuel; BIRCH BILLET.
1896 Dial Notes i, 377 ~ wood cut
up for burning. 1905 DUNCAN 136 So he would continue the splitting of billets of birch
wood for the winter's store. [1923] 1946 PRATT 201 "The Weather Glass": And were he now
this moment at the door, / His eyes would clear the shadows from this light, / His voice
put laughter in the billets' roar. T 199-65 He told my grandfather that if they wanted to
get some billets, these birch billets, if they could fill the schooner full o' birch
billets when they'd come down he'd buy them. 1969 HORWOOD 84 Some of the phrases are
highly picturesque... Chunks of firewood in Newfoundland are junks, unless they happen to
be birch junks, when they become billets.
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