picket
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: card-games
games
government
military
politics
war
Etymology: From French piquet, from piquer (“to pierce”).
Inflected forms:
form: pickets
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: pickets
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: picketing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: picketting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
rare
form: picketed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: picketed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: picketted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
rare
form: picketted
pos: verb
tags: past
rare
Senses:
gloss: A stake driven into the ground.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: a picket fence
gloss: A type of punishment by which an offender had to rest his or her entire body weight on the top of a small stake.
pos: noun
tags: countable
historical
uncountable
gloss: A tool in mountaineering that is driven into the snow and used as an anchor or to arrest falls.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: One of the soldiers or troops placed on a line forward of a position to warn against an enemy advance; or any unit (for example, an aircraft or ship) performing a similar function.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: So confident was he that he ignored the warning of his two British advisers to post pickets to watch the river, and even withdrew those they had placed there.
gloss: A sentry.
pos: noun
tags: countable
figuratively
sometimes
uncountable
examples: Maccario, it was evident, did not care to take the risk of blundering upon a picket, and a man led them by twisting paths until at last the hacienda rose blackly before them.
gloss: A protester positioned outside an office, workplace etc. during a strike (usually in plural); also the protest itself.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Pickets normally endeavor to be non-violent.
In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.
gloss: The card game piquet.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
gloss: To protest, organized by a labour union, typically in front of the location of employment.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To enclose or fortify with pickets or pointed stakes.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: One of the most striking was the silver pin presented to all members of the National Women’s Party who served time for picketting the White House for women’s suffrage.
gloss: To tether to, or as if to, a picket.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: to picket a horse
[T]he Moors kept a good Guard all Night, and did not unſaddle their Horſes, but picketted them before the Tent-Doors; […]
[F]rom the outskirts of the fair, where are picketted the horses and the herds for sale, comes the tinkle of bells, a mule’s shrill scream, mingled with the music of a guitar or the rattle of castanets.
gloss: To guard, as a camp or road, by an outlying picket.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To torture by forcing to stand with one foot on a pointed stake.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
Derived words: counterpicket
flying picket
outpicket
picketable
picket boat
picket bullet
picketee
picketer
picket fence
picket-house
picket house
picketless
picket line
picketmate
picket pin
picket rope
screw picket
star picket
white picket fence
picketing
unpicketed
Translations: