Other forms: pickets
A picket is a worker standing outside a workplace to persuade others not to enter during a strike. A picket line, cross the picket, join the picket.
Crossing a picket line is the strongest thing anybody can do against a strike and is remembered for decades. In Britain, peaceful picketing is lawful with limits on numbers and conduct. A flying picket travels to support strikes elsewhere. Elsewhere, a picket is a pointed stake — a picket fence — and in the army a picket is a small guard posted to watch.
1nounpicketA worker standing outside to persuade others not to enter.
“Pickets stood at the factory gates, holding signs and shouting at anyone who crossed.”
2nounpointedA pointed stake.
“The picket fence needs painting about every four years.”
picket is a stake or a striker.
French piquet means a pointed stake, from piquer, to prick. Soldiers were posted at the stakes marking a camp's boundary, the guard took the name, and striking workers took it from the guard.
French
piquet
English, today
picket
Built from
From French piquet, from piquer (“to pierce”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA