Word.ws English Dictionary

picketing

picketing is the present participle and gerund of picket.

Noun

picketing (plural picketings)

  1. The act of one who pickets (in any sense).
    • picketings and demonstrations
  2. (US) A picket fence.
    • The city is surrounded by picketings, and guarded by forts on the outside, and has since been very strongly fortified.1829, Samuel White, History of the American Troops, during the Late War, under the Command of Cols. Fenton and Campbell. […], Baltimore, Md.: Published by the author. B. Edes, printer., →OCLC, page 57
    • The enemy, posted among the houses of the French inhabitants and the picketings of their gardens, were advanced upon gallantly by Majors Graves and Madison, and dislodged in the face of a heavy fire.1886, Z[achariah] F[rederick] Smith, “War of 1812–15”, in The History of Kentucky. […], Louisville, Ky.: Courier-Journal Job Printing Company, […], →OCLC, page 471

Meaning of picket

Verb

picket (third-person singular simple present pickets, present participle picketing or (rare) picketting, simple past and past participle picketed or (rare) picketted)

  1. (intransitive) To protest, organized by a labour union, typically in front of the location of employment.
  2. (transitive) 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
  3. (transitive) To tether to, or as if to, a picket.
    • to picket a horse
  4. (transitive) To guard, as a camp or road, by an outlying picket.
  5. (obsolete, transitive) To torture by forcing to stand with one foot on a pointed stake.

See all 13 meanings of picket

Forms of picketing

Verb
alternative formpicketting
Noun
pluralpicketings

Words formed from picketing

Questions about picketing

What does picketing mean?
Picketing means the act of one who pickets (in any sense).
What is picketing the present participle and gerund of?
Picketing is the present participle and gerund of picket.
What part of speech is picketing?
Picketing is a noun.
What is the plural of picketing?
The plural of picketing is picketings.

Words near picketing in the dictionary

  1. picketer
  2. picketers
  3. picketh
  4. pickethouse
  5. pickethouses
  6. picketing
  7. picketings
  8. picketless
  9. pickets
  10. Pickett
  11. Pickett County

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: picketing (page history and authors); picket (page history and authors). 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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Cite this entry: “picketing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/picketing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.