Etʹiquette (3 syl.)

The usages of polite society. The word means a ticket or card, and refers to the ancient custom of delivering a card of directions and regulations to be observed by all those who attended court. The original use was a soldier’s billet. (French, etiquette; Spanish, etiqueta, a book of court ceremonies.)

“Etiquette … had its original application to those ceremonial and formal observances practised at Court… . The term came afterwards … to signify certain formal methods used in the transactions between Sovereign States.”—Burke: Works, vol. viii. p. 329.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.