picket
Syllables: pick·etUK/ˈpɪkɪt/
picket noun: a stake driven into the ground.
Noun
picket (countable and uncountable, plural pickets)
- A stake driven into the ground.
- a picket fence
- A type of punishment by which an offender had to rest his or her entire body weight on the top of a small stake.
- A tool in mountaineering that is driven into the snow and used as an anchor or to arrest falls.
- 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.
- 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.1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 59
- A sentry.
- 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.1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 26, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC
- A protester positioned outside an office, workplace etc. during a strike (usually in plural); also the protest itself.
- 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.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
- The card game piquet.
Verb
picket (third-person singular simple present pickets, present participle picketing or (rare) picketting, simple past and past participle picketed or (rare) picketted)
- To protest, organized by a labour union, typically in front of the location of employment.
- To enclose or fortify with pickets or pointed stakes.
- 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.2003, Christopher Fowler, “Hop”, in Demonized: Short Stories, London: Serpent’s Tail, published 2004, →ISBN, page 168
- To tether to, or as if to, a picket.
- 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; […]1729, [John] Braithwaite, The History of the Revolutions in the Empire of Morocco, upon the Death of the Late Emperor Muley Ishmael; […], London: […] J. Darby and T. Browne […], →OCLC, page 127
- To guard, as a camp or road, by an outlying picket.
- To torture by forcing to stand with one foot on a pointed stake.
Proper noun capitalized: Picket
Picket (plural Pickets)
- A surname.
picket meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
picket in Hindi
- पिकेट
picket in Tamil
- protester outside a workplace during a strike
- மறியல் maṟiyal
picket in Marathi
- पिकेट
picket in Urdu
- قراول
More languagesFewer languages
- picket in Bengali
- খুঁটি
- picket in Telugu
- పికెట్, పికేట్, పిక్ట్
- picket in Malayalam
- കൂർത്തമുനയുള്ള കുറ്റി, കാവൽസേന, പിക്കറ്റുചെയ്യൽ
- picket in Kannada
- ಕಾವಲು ಪಡೆ, ಹೊಂಚುದಳ, ಹೊಂಚುಪಡೆ, ಮುಷ್ಕರ ಪಹರೆ
- picket in Punjabi
- ਪਿਕੇਟ, ਪਿੱਕਟ, ਪਿੱਕੇਟ
- picket in Gujarati
- પિકેટ
- picket in Odia
- ପିକେଟ, ପିକେଟିଂ କରିବା ପାଇଁ
- picket in Nepali
- पिकेट, पिकेट गर्न
- picket in Arabic
- وَتَد watad, شَاخِص šāḵiṣ, لِكَاز likāz
Examples of picket in a sentence
- A long time union member himself, Phil showed solidarity with the picketing grocery store workers by shopping at a competing, unionized store.
- They can politick and debate, protest and lobby, write Washington and picket Main Street.
- To maintain stealth, SSBNs would first have to evade any adversary picket submarines lying offshore.
Forms of picket
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | pickets |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | pickets |
| present participle | picketing |
| past participle | picketed |
| past | picketed |
| present participle (rare) | picketting |
| past participle (rare) | picketted |
| past (rare) | picketted |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Pickets |
Origin of picket
From French piquet, from piquer (“to pierce”).
Words formed from picket
Phrases with picket
Words that rhyme with picket
Questions about picket
- What does picket mean?
- Picket means a stake driven into the ground.
- What is picket in Hindi?
- Picket in Hindi is पिकेट. See Picket meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is picket?
- Picket can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce picket?
- Picket is pronounced /ˈpɪkɪt/ (UK).
- What is the plural of picket?
- The plural of picket is pickets.
Words near picket in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: picket (page history and authors); Picket (page history and authors); picket (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); picket (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); picket (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); picket (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); picket (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); picket (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); picket (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); picket (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); picket (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); picket (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); picket (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-picket.ogg.
Cite this entry: “picket.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/picket. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.