Today, the word picket is often used in speech. What does it mean? It turns out that this lexical unit has a lot of meanings.
Translation of "picket"
It is interesting that it came to us from France, although at first glance it seems quite native, originally Russian. And the meaning of the word "picket" in translation from French is "count".
People associated with cartography, land measurements, excavations, surveying and other similar activities are often forced to put certain marks on the ground. It is most convenient to use pegs for these purposes. So they first began to be called pickets. Then the distance marking points on the railway lines and highways, gas and oil pipelines, as well as power lines with a step of 100 meters began to be called pickets.
The transfer of the "mark" value relative to other objects allowed the so-called serif file on metal structures. The point marked with a marker or indelible paint on concrete, metal or polymer insulation is also a picket.
What is an outpost and a guard?
If you go back to ancient times, even before the XIX century, then the field guards in the army and outposts will appear to your mind's eye. In the works of those times you can read: "We met a picket along the way." What is it about? It turns out that the author means a patrol patrolling a section of a road or territory.
Picket game
What is a card game, everyone understands. And one of them in the past was a picket. The meaning of the game was to score the agreed number of points as soon as possible. The first mention of a card picket dates back to the middle of the fourteenth century. True, then the game was called ronfle or cent. It got its modern name much later.
Small group protest
People who went out on the street, driven by a common idea to draw the attention of others to the unrest, illegality or immorality of one's actions, picket. That is what their movement can be called. Usually pickets are quite legal in nature, since they do not produce damage. Although picketers may well disrupt traffic on the roads or stop the operation of the plant or factory.
Often such events try to raise topical pressing issues regarding living and working conditions before company management. Sometimes protesters try to attract the attention of others to the state of the roads, people's attitudes towards the homeless and animals. There were even pickets fighting for a clean environment, against the use of profanity in speech.