Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Picket \Pick"et\, n. [F. piquet, properly dim. of pique spear, pike. See Pike, and cf. Piquet.]
A stake sharpened or pointed, especially one used in fortification and encampments, to mark bounds and angles; or one used for tethering horses.
A pointed pale, used in marking fences.
[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.
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]
A military punishment, formerly resorted to, in which the offender was forced to stand with one foot on a pointed stake.
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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.)
A position held and guarded by small bodies of men placed at intervals.
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A rope to which horses are secured when groomed.
Picketpin, an iron pin for picketing horses.
Wiktionary
n. A simple fence made from wooden pickets, connected by horizontal bars.
WordNet
n. a fence made of upright pickets [syn: paling]
Wikipedia
Picket fences are a type of fence often used decoratively for domestic boundaries, distinguished by their evenly spaced vertical boards, the pickets, attached to horizontal rails. Until the introduction of advertising on fences in the 1980s, cricket fields were usually surrounded by picket fences, giving rise to the expression rattling the pickets for a ball hit firmly into the fence.
Picket fence is a type of wooden fence.
Picket fence may also refer to:
- Via fence, a shielding structure used in electronics
- Picket Fences, a television series
- Picket-fencing, a chopping effect heard in telecommunications under poor reception conditions
Usage examples of "picket fence".
So the old lady was always standing on the store side of the white picket fence picking her shots among those congregated on the porch, and this had been going on for such a long time that nobody really noticed Mercedes anymore, nor paid much attention to the white pebbles that bounced harmlessly among them like hailstones.
Okay, fine, let him send some Charlie-Golfs against their picket fence, but mainly we want those birds armed with Smart Pigs to go after their ground forces.
She ought to be miles from Washington in some small town in a white house with a picket fence.
We arrive at the Hurley homestead, a huge breadbox with a white picket fence, a kidney in the back yard for swimming, and a two-car garage.
Honora would dress and leave the house and stand at the end of the lane near the swaying picket fence.
A picket fence swayed in the wind, the house had only three bedrooms, and the windows in the dining room were immediately painted shut by Honora’.
He followed it with his eyes to where the red picket fence finished, and beyond that to where it disappeared over the curve of the earth.
They got to their feet so fast that they knocked their chairs over, and these hard noises rattled repeatedly around the room like the sharp rata-tat produced by a running boy dragging a stick along a picket fence.