picket

What it means

1. countableuncountableA stake driven into the ground.

   a picket fence

2. countablehistoricaluncountableA type of punishment by which an offender had to rest his or her entire body weight on the top of a small stake.
3. countableuncountableA tool in mountaineering that is driven into the snow and used as an anchor or to arrest falls.

In a sentence

a picket fence

Where it comes from

1. Frenchpiquet
2. Englishpicket

From French piquet, from piquer (“to pierce”).