Picket

1. To guard, as a camp or road, by an outlying picket.
2. To fortify with pointed stakes.
3. A pointed pale, used in marking fences.
4. To tether to, or as to, a picket; as, to picket a horse.
5. To inclose or fence with pickets or pales.
6. A stake sharpened or pointed, especially one used in fortification and encampments, to mark bounds and angles; or one used for tethering horses.
7. To torture by compelling to stand with one foot on a pointed stake.
8. A game at cards. See Piquet.
9. A military punishment, formerly resorted to, in which the offender was forced to stand with one foot on a pointed stake.
10. 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.
11. A detached body of troops serving to guard an army from surprise, and to oppose reconnoitering parties of the enemy; -- called also outlying picket.