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Picket   /pˈɪkɪt/   Listen
noun
Picket  n.  
1.
A stake sharpened or pointed, especially one used in fortification and encampments, to mark bounds and angles; or one used for tethering horses.
2.
A pointed pale, used in marking fences.
3.
(Mil.) A detached body of troops serving to guard an army from surprise, and to oppose reconnoitering parties of the enemy; called also outlying picket.
4.
By extension, men appointed by a trades union, or other labor organization, to intercept outsiders, and prevent them from working for employers with whom the organization is at variance. (Cant)
5.
A military punishment, formerly resorted to, in which the offender was forced to stand with one foot on a pointed stake.
6.
A game at cards. See Piquet.
Inlying picket (Mil.), a detachment of troops held in camp or quarters, detailed to march if called upon.
Picket fence, a fence made of pickets. See def. 2, above.
Picket guard (Mil.), a guard of horse and foot, always in readiness in case of alarm.
Picket line. (Mil.)
(a)
A position held and guarded by small bodies of men placed at intervals.
(b)
A rope to which horses are secured when groomed.
Picketpin, an iron pin for picketing horses.


verb
Picket  v. t.  (past & past part. picketed; pres. part. picketing)  
1.
To fortify with pointed stakes.
2.
To inclose or fence with pickets or pales.
3.
To tether to, or as to, a picket; as, to picket a horse.
4.
To guard, as a camp or road, by an outlying picket.
5.
To torture by compelling to stand with one foot on a pointed stake. (Obs.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Picket" Quotes from Famous Books



... distribution of wealth in the world. Some of the best-known people in the country were openly taking the ground that the poor man was not getting a "square deal." To sympathize with organized labor was no longer "bad form," some society women even doing picket duty for Jewish factory-girls out ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... name of the commune, to sequester the objects belonging to the church Sainte-Marguerite, in the little borough of St. Antoine. A picket of 10 national guards is in permanence in the church to ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... also employed in connexion with "obstacles" in field fortifications, especially in what are known as "high wire entanglements." Pointed stakes or "pickets," 4 ft. high, are planted in rows and secured by ordinary wire to holdfasts or pegs in the ground. Each picket is connected to all around it, top and bottom, by lengths ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... receiver of the telephone which communicated with the watchful picket of the Marston & Waller offices. "Who? Oh, she ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... small stature but very thickset, with their wide smooth faces, loose clothing of sheepskin with the wool outside, with their long coarse hair flying in the wind, and their uncouth shouts in a barbarous tongue, are much like savages. They sing wild chants as they picket their sheep in long double lines at night, and with their savage mastiffs sleep unsheltered under the frosty skies under the lee of their piled-up saddlebags. On three nights I camped beside their caravans, and walked round their orderly ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)


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