picket
Americannoun
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pickets
plural
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a post, stake, pale, or peg that is used in a fence or barrier, to fasten down a tent, etc.
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a person stationed by a union or the like outside a factory, store, mine, etc., in order to dissuade or prevent workers or customers from entering it during a strike.
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a person engaged in any similar demonstration, as against a government's policies or actions, before an embassy, office building, construction project, etc.
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Military. a soldier or detachment of soldiers placed on a line forward of a position to warn against an enemy advance.
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Navy, Air Force. an aircraft or ship performing similar sentinel duty.
verb (used with object)
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pickets,
present (3rd person singular)
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picketed,
past participle, past
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picketing
present participle
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to enclose within a picket fence or stockade, as for protection, imprisonment, etc..
to picket a lawn; to picket captives.
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to fasten or tether to a picket.
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to place pickets in front of or around (a factory, store, mine, embassy, etc.), as during a strike or demonstration.
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Military.
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to guard, as with pickets.
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to post as a picket.
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verb (used without object)
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pickets,
present (3rd person singular)
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picketed,
past participle, past
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picketing
present participle
noun
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a pointed stake, post, or peg that is driven into the ground to support a fence, provide a marker for surveying, etc
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an individual or group that stands outside an establishment to make a protest, to dissuade or prevent employees or clients from entering, etc
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Also: picquet. a small detachment of troops or warships positioned towards the enemy to give early warning of attack
verb
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to post or serve as pickets at (a factory, embassy, etc)
let's go and picket the shop
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to guard (a main body or place) by using or acting as a picket
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(tr) to fasten (a horse or other animal) to a picket
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(tr) to fence (an area, boundary, etc) with pickets
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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picketsimple
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picketssimple
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have picketedperfect
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has picketedperfect
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am picketingprogressive
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are picketingprogressive
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is picketingprogressive
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have been picketingperfect progressive
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has been picketingperfect progressive
Past
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picketedsimple
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had picketedperfect
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was picketingprogressive
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were picketingprogressive
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had been picketingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of picket
First recorded in 1680–90; from French piquet, equivalent to pike 2 + -et ( def. )
Explanation
A picket is a vertical wooden board in a fence. You might have a white picket fence enclosing your whole front yard, so your little dog can't escape. Besides the "wooden stake or strip" meaning, you can also use picket as a verb to mean "protest or strike." When disgruntled workers go on strike, they often picket outside their workplace, holding signs and chanting. You can also call one of these protesting workers a picket. The original meaning, from the 1680s, is "a pointed stake used as a defensive weapon." And the original picket line was a line of military troops.
Vocabulary lists containing picket
The Watsons Go to Birmingham
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"Tinker v. Des Moines": Excerpts from Justice Black's Dissenting Opinion
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This Week in Words: September 14–20, 2019
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
This perception of economic abundance spread in the 1950s with the post-WWII boom, perhaps best symbolised through the growth of single-family homes adorned with white picket fences.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
Owning a house with a white picket fence?
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
Cost-of-living concerns, brought on by the flaring up of inflation since the pandemic, have led more union workers to the picket line.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
A market in which private equity increasingly buys up single-family housing isn’t going to yield havens of picket fences and prosperity.
From Salon ● Jun. 3, 2026
Mom had chrysanthemums planted along the sidewalk and along the front fence—which was actually white picket.
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
The city council said it had suspended collections across the city for the day due to the "mass pickets and protests" across its depots.
From BBC ● Dec. 1, 2025
On pickets, speeches captured the dark but defiant mood.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2024
After months of stalled negotiations, pickets, strike threats and mounting financial uncertainty, PCC Community Markets has reached a tentative labor deal with its about 1,600 unionized hourly workers, both sides said Wednesday.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 31, 2024
The performers union, SAG-AFTRA, hosted two Halloween pickets on Tuesday, “Double, Double, Toil and Trouble!” at Netflix and “Spooky Solidarity Day” at the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2023
The perfect picket fence now had a gate over the top of it, and one of the pickets was broken, jagged.
From "As Brave As You" by Jason Reynolds
Less than three dozen people picketed outside of OpenAI’s offices, but the demonstration sparked a bitter feud on an effective altruist forum.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
Steve Lubetkin was one of the comedians who picketed alongside Letterman, Dreesen and Leno, and when the strike ended, he panicked after he couldn’t get stage time in the following weeks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026
Workers picketed outside their newsroom in London to protest the proposed sale to Tortoise Media, arguing it had been “rushed through” without the support of the staff.
From New York Times ● Dec. 4, 2024
They were known as "scabs" by striking miners, who picketed as they arrived at work.
From BBC ● Mar. 2, 2024
Union members picketed the factory until they were prohibited from doing so by a judge.
From "Fannie Never Flinched" by Mary Cronk Farrell
But for now, WGA’s staff union will be picketing outside of its Fairfax offices.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 17, 2026
But during the Oscars, which was produced by Quincy Jones, Goldberg, who was hosting, took a swipe at the civil rights leader who was picketing across town.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 17, 2026
The picketing machinists benefited from a strike fund while they were off the job but were under increasing pressure as healthcare coverage lapsed for some families.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 13, 2025
The union said it was preparing to challenge the injunction, but said it agreed to abide by the law on picketing.
From BBC ● May 31, 2025
The “departure” that Blatch, other suffragist leaders, and particularly Alice Paul came up with was picketing, a tactic that Blatch and Paul had seen used effectively when they had aided British suffragists.
From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
