ticket

A small document that acts as proof of something, often thereby granting the holder some ability.

Noun

A small document that acts as proof of something, often thereby granting the holder some ability.
- I've got two tickets for the match on Saturday; want to come?
1. A pass entitling the holder to admission to a show, concert, sporting event, etc.
2. A pass entitling the holder to board a train, a bus, a plane, or other means of transportation.
  - train ticket bus ticket plane ticket
  - You must show your ticket to the conductor.
3. A permit to operate a machine on a construction site.
  
  Synonyms: license
4. A certificate or token of a share in a lottery or other scheme for distributing money, goods, etc.
  - lottery ticket raffle ticket
  - If I'd used my usual numbers, it would've been a winning ticket! Unlucky!
5. A certificate of qualification as a ship's master, pilot, or other crew member.
  - 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...
6. (figurative) A solution to a problem; something that is needed in order to do something.
  - That's the ticket.
  - I saw my first bike as my ticket to freedom.
  - "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:
A citation for a traffic violation.
A service request, used to track complaints or requests that an issue be handled.
- "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...
A list of candidates for an election, or a particular theme to a candidate's manifesto.
- Joe has joined the party's ticket for the county elections.
- Joe will be running on an anti-crime ticket.
- 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...
A small 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. - a. 1662 (date written), Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of...
- Under each coin was a circular ticket with written particulars of the specimen accompanying it. - 1923, Ernest Bramah, The Eyes of Max Carrados:
A tradesman's bill or account (hence the phrase on ticket and eventually on tick).
- Your courtier is mad to take up silks and velvets / On ticket for his mistress. - 1633, Shackerley Marmion, A Fine Companion:
A label affixed to goods to show their price or description.
A visiting card.
- I asked for a card, please, and she was quite put about, and said that she didn't require tickets to get in where she visited. - 1878, Mrs. James Mason, All about Edith, page 124:
- "Mr. Gibbs come in just now," said Mrs. Blewett, "and left his ticket over the chimley. There 'tis. I haven't touched it." - 1899, The Leisure Hour: An Illustrated Magazine for Home Reading:
A warrant.
- […] I need a ticket, Bobby.” Agnor knew a ticket meant a search warrant. - 1999, Doug Most, Always in Our Hearts, page 148:

Origin

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.