n.
- a person or group of people standing outside a workplace trying to persuade others not to enter during a strike.
-
(also picquet or piquet)
a soldier or small body of troops sent out to watch for the enemy.
-
[usu. as modifier]
a pointed wooden stake driven into the ground to form a fence or to tether a horse.
v.
(pickets, picketing, picketed)
act as a picket outside (a workplace).
Derivative
Etymology
C17 (denoting a pointed stake, on which a soldier was required to stand on one foot as a military punishment): from Fr. piquet ‘pointed stake’.