Etymology 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.
A pass entitling the holder to admission to a show, concert, sporting event, etc.
I've got two tickets for the match on Saturday; want to come?
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.
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 Railway is Recruited”, in Railway Magazine, page 207:
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Figuratively 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.
1 more example
"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:
7
A citation for a traffic violation.
8
A service request, used to track complaints or requests that an issue be handled.
Usually technical support
"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:
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Government, PoliticsInformal 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.
2 more examples
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 Clinton2020 November 7, Chelsea Janes, “Kamala Harris, daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, elected nation’s first female vice president”, in Washington Post:
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 England, London: […] J[ohn] G[rismond,] W[illiam] L[eybourne] and W[illiam] G[odbid], published 1662, →OCLC:
Under each coin was a circular ticket with written particulars of the specimen accompanying it.1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC:
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Dated 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:
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A label affixed to goods to show their price or description.
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:
Ticket in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
ticket
verb
Etymology 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.
1
To issue someone a ticket, as for travel or for a violation of a local or traffic law.