A picket line is the line of strikers standing outside a workplace. Cross the picket line, join the picket line, a picket line at the gate.
Crossing one is the deepest breach in union culture, and the word for somebody who does is scab. British law limits how many may stand on a picket line at any one entrance.
1nounpicket lineThe line of strikers standing outside a workplace.
“The striking workers stood on the picket line outside the factory gates all day.”
picket line is a line.
From picket, a stake driven into the ground and hence a posted guard, plus line.
Built from
From picket (“stake driven into the ground; soldier or small unit of soldiers assigned to perform a duty; protester positioned outside a workplace, etc., during a strike; the protest itself”) + line.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Politics & Society