picket line

English
WOTD – 13 March 2020

Etymology
Horses on a beach tethered to a picket line (sense 1).
Employees of the BBC forming a picket line (sense 4) in front of Broadcasting House in Bristol, UK, during a strike in May 2005.

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.[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

picket line (plural picket lines)

  1. (rare) A line or rope held by one or many pickets, chiefly one used for tethering horses.
  2. (military, rare) A barrier or fortification formed by pickets; a stockade.
  3. (military) A boundary guarded by a picket (unit of soldiers).
  4. A boundary created by workers participating in a strike, generally at the workplace entrance, which other workers are asked not to pass.
    • 2022 August 10, “Network News: RMT's Lynch raises the prospect of a General Strike”, in RAIL, number 963, page 7, photo caption:
      RMT union members form a picket line outside Birmingham New Street on July 27, as part of a national dispute over jobs, pay and conditions.

Translations
barrier or fortification formed by pickets — see stockade

References
  1. “picket line, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2006; “picket line, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading
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