Picketing

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The practice involves standing outside a place to publicly express dissent or support through visual messages
2. It refers to the organized assembly of individuals holding signs outside an establishment to voice their opinions
3. The act of gathering visibly outside a site to show disagreement or backing for a cause

Etymology: The noun "picket" began as a sharpened stake. It comes from French "piquet", a small pointed stake, itself from "piquer", meaning "to pierce". Before anyone stood at a factory gate, the picket was something driven into the ground, and it lent its name to the sense of a stake or post used as a fence or a marker. The white fences of suburban gardens carry the same ancestry. The protest sense grew out of that idea of a post placed to hold a position. A picket was a sentry or guard set at a point to watch and to block passage, and workers who stood outside a workplace during a dispute took on that role. Standing at the boundary of a site to signal disagreement or solidarity is how the old stake came to mean a person on watch. The verb "picketing" is the present participle of "picket" and names the act itself: taking up a position outside a place and holding it with banners or signs.

Synonyms: demonstrating, protesting, marching, rallying, striking