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What is "outlying picket"

The Collaborative International Dictionary
outlying picket

Picket \Pick"et\, n. [F. piquet, properly dim. of pique spear, pike. See Pike, and cf. Piquet.]

  1. A stake sharpened or pointed, especially one used in fortification and encampments, to mark bounds and angles; or one used for tethering horses.

  2. A pointed pale, used in marking fences.

  3. [Probably so called from the picketing of the horses.] (Mil.) A detached body of troops serving to guard an army from surprise, and to oppose reconnoitering parties of the enemy; -- called also outlying picket.

  4. By extension, men appointed by a trades union, or other labor organization, to intercept outsiders, and prevent them from working for employers with whom the organization is at variance. [Cant]

  5. A military punishment, formerly resorted to, in which the offender was forced to stand with one foot on a pointed stake.

  6. A game at cards. See Piquet. Inlying picket (Mil.), a detachment of troops held in camp or quarters, detailed to march if called upon. Picket fence, a fence made of pickets. See def. 2, above. Picket guard (Mil.), a guard of horse and foot, always in readiness in case of alarm. Picket line. (Mil.)

    1. A position held and guarded by small bodies of men placed at intervals.

    2. A rope to which horses are secured when groomed.

      Picketpin, an iron pin for picketing horses.

Usage examples of "outlying picket".

There were signs everywherefirst the pits dug into the sand by the outlying picket stations, then the deep ruts where wagons had been positioned in a defensive line.

There were signs everywhere - first the pits dug into the sand by the outlying picket stations, then the deep ruts where wagons had been positioned in a defensive line.

But before I'd got halfway to the crest I came on their outlying picket breakfasting round a fire in a little hollow, and who should I see but little Fanny Duberly, presiding over a frying-pan with half a dozen grinning Highlanders round her.

Coming, in one of the channels, upon what seemed a little shrub, the outlying picket, I trusted, of an army behind it, I knelt to look at it closer.

Another column swept down the other road, upon which there was only an outlying picket.