picket

A stake driven into the ground.countableuncountable

• 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.countablehistoricaluncountable

A tool in mountaineering that is driven into the snow and used as an anchor or to arrest falls.countableuncountable

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.countableuncountable

• 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.

A sentry.countablefigurativelysometimes

• 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.

A protester positioned outside an office, workplace etc. during a strike (usually in plural); also the protest itself.countableuncountable

• Pickets normally endeavor to be non-violent.

The card game piquet.uncountable

To protest, organized by a labour union, typically in front of the location of employment.intransitive

To enclose or fortify with pickets or pointed stakes.transitive

• 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.

To tether to, or as if to, a picket.transitive

• to picket a horse

To guard, as a camp or road, by an outlying picket.transitive

To torture by forcing to stand with one foot on a pointed stake.obsoletetransitive