picket line
27
4.2
- noun
- /ˈpɪkɪt laɪn/
:
piquete
- During the strike, workers stood together on the picket line to protest against unfair wages.
- cross the picket line
- walk through a picket line
And then also walk in the picket line making friends.
- And then also walk in the picket line making friends.
- Typical kind of scenario this was in Massachusetts, picket lines, signs, shouting slogans.
- And you know, cops will breakthrough that picket line and crush your skull to bring in the scabs.
- And what Black Lives Matter meant was very different on the two sides of the picket line.
- They could address their grievances in the boardroom, not on the picket line.
- But what I did was I would go on these picketing the picket line, and I would tag the older writers.
Examples
-
They'll all be standing in a picket line by morning.
-
Barbara remembers walking picket lines with her mother when she was only five years old.
Academic text (2003) -
And then also walk in the picket line making friends.
-
Almost everyone had signed up to do some time on the picket line.
Fiction book (2002) -
Though we are not on strike, we will join the picket lines wherever possible.
Blog text (28) -
Attention, all nurses report to the picket line outside.
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...thousands of California supermarket clerks are on the picket line.
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We are ordered to form a picket line and cover the Army's retreat across the river.
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Al gave me an almost imperceptible nod and kept on moving along the picket line.
Fiction book (1994) -
"We Shall Overcome" was our anthem on the picket lines, and we believed in it.
Blog text (27)
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'picket' (a person protesting outside a workplace) combined with 'line' (a formation or queue) yields 'a line or group of protesters'. This follows a straightforward noun+noun composition found cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Picket line comes from the old word picket, a small pointed stick used to make a fence or mark a post, and line, meaning a row. Soldiers and later workers would stand guard at these posts in a row, so a picket line now means a row of people outside a workplace who 'protest' during a 'strike' or try to stop others from entering.